


Dark Angel's Embrace (Part II of The Chronicles of House Vader)

by IvyLeigh



Series: The Chronicles of House Vader [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Aren't you happy he found a nice girl?, Blood and Violence, Bondage and Discipline, Consensual bondage, Dark Romance, Darth Vader - Freeform, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Decapitation, Domination/submission, Emperor Palpatine - Freeform, F/M, Heavy BDSM, I didn't used to be like this you know, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Interrogation, Look you know she's perfect for him, Manipulative Sheev Palpatine, Master/Slave, Murder, No that was a lie it gets a lot more murdery, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Oral Sex, Past Child Abuse, Psychological Torture, Rough Sex, The GFFA is a terrifying place, This is the darkest installment of the series, Underage Rape/Non-con, Yes there are some feelz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-07 15:24:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11626383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvyLeigh/pseuds/IvyLeigh
Summary: After missing in action for three months after the Battle of Yavin, Vader arrives on the Imperial Throneworld and is severely punished by Sidious for his failure to protect the Death Star. As the Emperor tortures Vader's mind, he discovers the existence of Lylla. Angry and jealous, Palpatine makes a deplorable demand.Lylla discovers that life on the Throneworld is not what she anticipated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1/21/18: I've gone back and made some changes. I was going to try and work in the whole Inquisitor/Inquisitorious thang, but then decided it was stupid and wasn't gonna work. So Lylla is now an Imperial Interrogator, not an Inquisitor. Yeah, it was confusing. Sorry about that.
> 
> I decided to split this up into 2 chapters. Sorry for any confusion and/or inconvenience.
> 
> Ok, I just want to say this-- the GFFA is a terrible dangerous place full of violence and suffering. Now we only get the PG-13 version of this universe through movies and comics. This is not the PG-13 version. AT. ALL.
> 
> There is content in this installment that may be disturbing to some readers, including rape/non-con (flashbacks), torture, physical abuse, voyeurism, M/M BDSM, bondage, child sexual abuse (flashbacks), and murder. Lylla was a sex slave. Lylla did NOT have a happy life. 
> 
> And the one thing Vader hates more than Jedi are slavers.
> 
> It is no secret that Vader and Sidious have a pretty effed-up relationship. While not a sexual relationship per se, I always imagined Palpatine using sexuality to humiliate and degrade, and I don't think Vader escaped that treatment. It's a disturbing scene to read. It was a very disturbing scene to write. I had to take quite a few breaks and walk away from it for minutes at a time. 
> 
> What started as a smut challenge nine years ago has become this sprawling epic in my head-- The Rise of the House of Vader. And we're only three months in. 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for your readership and support. Kudos and reviews are like Christmas all day every day!

Date: Three Standard Months After Battle of Yavin

The quartet of the Emperor's Royal Guard stood noiseless and inert, two at the entrance of the gleaming receiving hall, and two on either side of the massive five-meter tall obsidian doors on the far end. Planted in the center, the squad of eight stormtroopers from the 501st stood just as rigid and silent, blasters poised across their armored chests, four facing the entrance guards, four facing the door guards. They had stood like this, facing each other, opposing chess pieces controlled by similar hands, expressionless, solid, and utterly unaware of the torture that had been going on behind those doors for the last several hours.

Beyond the doors lay a chamber built of black marble and durasteel and the finest obsidian in the galaxy, scores of meters wide as it was high. The far wall of the massive room was one enormous rounded window that looked out across the Imperial Throneworld's soaring skyline, the city-planet once known as Coruscant. The floors, laid with polished onyx, caught the diminishing light of the setting sun and glistened like a serene pool at midnight-- a purposeful disguise for the the horrors that lay beneath it. For beneath those floors were instruments for every imagined torment; a durasteel restraining table installed with hundreds of electrodes that punctured the skin; full-body photon tissue splicers that could burn through cellular structures in a matter of nanoseconds; hundreds of meters of chains attached to durasteel cuffs and collars; ultrasonic synapse shatterers; the list went on. Emperor Palpatine’s private torture systems made the ISB's look like a youngling’s playground. 

Probably the most interesting aspect of them all was that none of them ran on any power supply. All power was provided by Darth Sidious himself through the Dark Side of the Force, including the trap doors and platforms that raised the monstrosities from beneath the floors to the throne room. One of these Force-powered mechanisms was a transparasteel hyperbaric chamber. And inside that hyperbaric chamber was a writhing, shrieking, chained, and unarmored Darth Vader.

Vader was on his knees, his arms wide and in front of him, held there by durasteel bolts driven through his cybernetic wrists attached to chains stretched to the ceiling struts. The ankles of his cybernetic legs were bolted straight into the floor. Wisped ends of wire frayed from out of the wounds, and synthe-plasma the color of crude dripped from the punctures, pooling on the floor around him. Between his hoarse, tortured cries, Vader's chest quaked and heaved with frantic attempts to overtake the chamber’s measured oxygen pumps for desperately needed air. But these small torments were insignificant compared to the agony within the shattered window of his own tortured mind.

The stooped figure of the Emperor sat withered in his huge onyx throne, contoured against the late afternoon light of peach and maroon, his hooded head tipped slightly down. He was weary, yes. Despite the decades of manipulating his physiology into something no longer completely human, small beads of sweat still managed to douse his brow and betray his complete control over his involuntary functions. Hours of administering Force-lightning torture was easy, and not too terribly taxing. But this…this work had always proven to be significantly demanding on him, no matter how he would prepare himself for it or how often he would dispense it. Yes, weaving his telepathic tendrils into the psychic garret of Vader's mind and ripping his sanity apart from the inside always wore poor Sidious out. Waking nightmares were a particularly laborious torment of the Dark Side.

Sidious lifted his hood slightly as he witnessed the newest image of horror blaze through Vader's mind. Vader battled the chains holding him down while he shrieked in his unaltered voice, “NO! NO, PLEASE! MOTHER! HANG ON! GIVE ME YOUR HAND! IT CAN'T BURN YOU IF YOU HOLD MY HAND! DON'T LET GO! NO! NO! DON'T LET- NOOOOOO! AAAAAAHHH!" And with that final scream, Vader's enormous hulk lurched up. Sidious sighed with what one could almost call pity as the image of Shmi Skywalker, sinking and screaming into an ocean of Mustafar's molten lava, seared through his mind. There, he could smell her hair burning, see her meat crackling and blackening and curling off her bones, and watched her eyes bulge from the sockets as she screamed for her son's hand...

With a breath and a tiny flick of his finger, Palpatine altered the nightmare as easily as he would switch frequencies on the holonet. Vader's screams of horror altered as well, becoming deeper, menacing; the words spit were those of a raging adolescent. "You. It's your fault, it's ALL your fault! You hate me, the Council hates me, you're all jealous of my power! Nothing was ever good enough for you! You took EVERYTHING FROM ME! EVERYTHING!" He erupted into a triumphant cacophony of laughter barbed with madness. "HA! THERE! Who's the master NOW? Who holds the power of life and death in his hands? Burn, you spiteful, treacherous son of a bitch! BURN IN HELL!"

A raise of the Emperor's eyebrow brought forth another image, and with it another anguished scene for Vader. "Not you. No, not you too," His scarred voice cracked with a sob. "I did it for you. I did it all for you, and our…Ah, gods…" His entire body quaked with weeping. "Come back. Don't leave, please don't leave me. Everyone leaves me…Look at me…who could ever want me…like this…?"

A slow, sated smile crept under Palpatine's black hood. As he had done many, many times throughout the last twenty years, he had pummeled Vader's mental barricades, had smashed through any defenses, leaving his apprentice drained, broken, and pliable to his commands. Now was the time to imprint his visage on Vader's mind, as his apprentice's one and only friend, his confidant, as his parent and teacher, as his whole reason for existence…raising his hood ever so slightly, Palpatine prepared himself for the final mental caress…

Until a new image flashed through his mind, an avatar not of his making, but of Vader's. Murky and unfamiliar, it slithered across Sidious's mind's eye: Pale tones of ivory flesh, slender hands with tapered fingers snaking down his apprentice's scarred, tube-implanted chest, a caress of lips, a ragged cry, eyes clenched closed and mouth agape, the undeniable rhythm of human coupling, and a brief flash of scarlet hair thrown back in sexual fury and dire need…And when Vader spoke again, a web of desire and doubt spun over Sidious's psyche. 

"Sa’thraxxx..." Vader whispered. "How could you…want…a monster? You want the darkness…are you like me inside…are you...a beast?" His chest heaved slowly, rhythmically. "A beautiful beast…"

Vader’s growing erection did not escape the Emperor's attention either. 

Rage roiled through Palpatine, his gnarled fingers gripping the arms of his throne. A new companion lurked in the shadows now, a new tether for his apprentice to grasp, a new surrogate for his needs. Throwing up his arms, Palpatine sliced his hands through the air, breaking his psychic bondage. Vader's screams pealed through the hyperbaric chamber as the Emperor's tendrils ripped from his mind, his whole scarred mass convulsing and twisting in his chains. With a small, tired wave of his hand, the Emperor released the bolts through Vader's limbs, and the chains shot back into their housings. Vader fell prostrate to the floor. With great effort, the Dark Lord pushed himself onto his hands and knees, his head slunk between his arms. For many long, excruciating moments, the only sound in the vast chamber was that of the mighty Dark Lord panting frantically for air.

Palpatine glared at his apprentice, waiting for his desperate breaths to slow, before he chose to address him. "You wound me, child. You have torn at the very fabric of my heart. You have betrayed me."

Vader pushed himself to his hands and knees. The shrill, childish staccato that had wracked his voice during the torture was gone, and his rich cadence had returned. "I deserve no forgiveness, my Master. I underestimated the Rebels' tenacity and dismissed their fortitude. I have failed you."

"BAH!" Palpatine barked, exploding to his feet. "The REBELS? You think I speak of that motley mob of thieves and terrorists!" He began to descend the dais staircase. "Twenty years of research, planning, building, wiped out in an instant! A million of the Empire's finest, gone in the blink of an eye! Our greatest achievement, our monument to our eminence, vanished! And the irony of it all? THAT, my friend, I can forgive." He stopped his slow, menacing approach a meter shy of his kneeling, shattered apprentice inside his chamber. "Materials can be restored. Men can be replaced, as there is never a shortage of those ravenous for power and privilege. And even as we speak, construction has increased on Death Star II. But…" His voice softened to a hurt growl. "How does one return…trust? How does one cement a union that has taken decades to enmesh, only to be rent asunder through deceit! After all of our years together, after everything I have given you--your power, your body, everything--now you keep SECRETS from me?"

Vader's chest seized clear through to his shoulders. Having no recollection whatsoever of the waking nightmares, dread twined through what remained organic in his body. What had his master seen? "My Master, I would never—"

"And now you lie to me as well?" A heavy sigh permeated from under the black hood, and thin, dark cloaked arms folded over his thin chest. "Look at me." Vader obeyed, lifting his maskless face to meet the Emperor's sickly yellow eyes. With a curl to his lip that could have been either disgust or amusement, Palpatine murmured, "You have taken a lover, boy."

Vader clenched his eyes and swallowed hard. Sidious had seen her, there was no point in denying it now. "Yes, my Master."

"Without my permission or approval?"

"Yes, my Master." Palpatine's rage and jealousy stabbed through Vader. "I thought it of no importance. An opportunity presented itself. I…took it."

"I see." Turning, the Emperor slinked slowly across the gleaming floors back toward another gigantic window, leaving his apprentice kneeling and penitent for what seemed to be an eternity of quiet. Finally, the Emperor spoke. "Is it a male or female?"

Vader looked up and over at the Emperor. A small smile tugged at his scarred lip as he narrowed his eyes. So, Palpatine hadn't seen everything, his shields had worked somewhat, if not completely. The smile, however, melted as quickly as his tiny triumph, as he was now obliged to answer his Master's questions. "A woman, Master."

"A woman." The Emperor chuckled murkily. "Yes, of course. You always did have a weakness for them." His twisted smile grew even wider as he felt humiliation jolt from his apprentice. "Human?"

"Yes, Master. Fellenetian."

"Fellenetian? Hmmm. She is tall then?” Sidious asked, knowing that Fellenet was a lower-gravity world. “As tall as you?”

“Almost, Master.”

“Is she beautiful?” Palpatine bit out.

“Very,” Vader rasped, daring a hint of defiance.

Emperor wrought his brow in anger. Turning over his shoulder, he asked, "Tell me, boy…has she seen your face?"

Vader swallowed his degradation. "Yes, Master."

Palpatine turned completely around, his hood set at an incredulous tilt. "And she didn't run screaming? She was still willing to bed with you? My, there is some mettle in this lover, isn't there?"

"Yes, Master," Vader replied dully before glaring directly at Sidious and adding, "She is… unique." Despite his humiliating predicament, Vader took some pleasure in his Master’s jealousy.

"Is she now?" Palpatine snarled quietly. "Who is she? Anyone from court? An officer? A noble?"

"No, Master. She is your newest Interrogator."

Palpatine straightened in response. “You appointed her?”

“Yes. She was able to get the location of the Rebel base from Organa’s personal guard when other attempts had failed. She will serve you well.”

Sidious raised a hairless eyebrow. “Impressive. Her name is Sa'thraxxx?"

Vader fought a shudder. Had he said her name…? "Yes, Master."

"That is a Sith name." 

"Yes, Master. I gave it to her."

“You gave it to her?” The Emperor’s scowl deepened. “Of all the Sith names, you gave her that one? Why, boy? You know what it means.”

“I do. It fits her.” 

Palpatine’s jealousy flared through the Force. Vader stifled his triumphant sneer. But then, abruptly, Sidious chuckled. “So, she has seen your face. Has she seen the rest of you?” He felt Vader’s defiance disintegrate. “I’ll take that as a no. Oh my boy, do you honestly think a mere mortal woman could love something like you?”

Vader was not about to play that game. “She offered herself as a means of promotion. I am using her, Master, and she is using me. That is all. I do not believe she is even capable of love."

Palpatine raised a hairless brow once more. "Indeed. Well, if she is not a courtier, she certainly behaves like one. Offering sex for promotion? And sadistic enough for my Inquisition? Yes, it seems you have chosen wisely…so far." Palpatine held his kneeling apprentice in his eye before he proclaimed, "I will meet this lover."

Vader's voice remained steady. "Yes, my Master."

"She will be sent an invitation to the Coronation Day celebration. There, she will be presented to me."

"Yes, Master."

"But before then, I will watch you with her."

Vader's eyes rose again to meet his master's glare. "Watch me with her? I…do not understand, Master—"

"Oh, of course you do, child." Palpatine again came toward his apprentice. "When you leave here, you will summon her to you. And you will open yourself to me as you rut with her." Again, the dim chuckle frothed from his decrepit throat as he leaned down to look at Vader through the transparasteel of the hyperbaric chamber. "I must determine if she is worthy of you, my boy. I cannot have my second cavorting with little more than a gutterslut now, can I?"

Vader glared blaster bolts into his Master’s fire-colored eyes from his own. In the twenty some years within his Master's bondage, he had never had to perform sexually for him. Yes, there had been manipulations before, when the Emperor invaded his mind and toyed with the pleasure centers there, but Palpatine had always insisted that practice was merely used as stress relief, to keep him focused and undistracted from his work. There had never been any physical demands made upon him. Until now.

Again, that dark chuckle gurgled through the throneroom, slinking across the floors and ceiling. "I can feel your hate, boy," Sidious croaked. He enfolded his skeletal hand it into his voluminous sleeve. "Now go." He turned away. "And do not dissatisfy me."

A large tile slid open in the floor of the hyperbaric chamber. Out of the opening rose a Two One Bee medical droid holding Vader’s mask, helmet, armor, and robes across its arms. Shakily, Vader rose to his feet, and pulled himself to his full stature. "Yes, my Master," he rumbled softly, attempting to disguise the loathing in his voice before turning toward the droid, who assisted him in putting his armor back on and calibrating the its life-support systems. Once his armor was fully installed, the chamber’s hydraulic locks opened with an reverberate thunk. Without acknowledging his Master again, he moved toward the doors. The entire chamber and the Two One Bee unit inside sank back down through the floor.

As Vader stepped out into the glistening foyer, his troops split to each side to allow him through. But after only a few steps, he stumbled and slumped to a knee, bracing himself with one hand on the floor. Even with his suit’s respiratory system running at full capacity, his blood oxygen was still dangerously low. Although the Emperor's scarlet guard never moved from their posts, Vader's troopers charged forward to assist their fallen commander-- but stopped abruptly, as if they were suddenly and involuntarily frozen in their tracks.

It was then he heard a stray thought of one of the Royal Imperial Guards slide across his consciousness and felt his hate across the hall—

_*So, the all-powerful Sith Lord isn't so powerful after all.*_

Vader raised his mask, slowly, toward the Guard at the entrance and held it there. Then he brought up his hand, raised two fingers, and beckoned the Guard over.

The Guard chuckled grimly under his helm, thrilled at the invitation, his long-held hatred and jealousy of the Dark Lord overcoming his better judgment. With Vader physically compromised and focusing the Force on his men, dispatching him would be significantly less troublesome. “With pleasure, Vader.” He threw his long scarlet cloak over his shoulder, revealing the red battle armor worn underneath it. Gripping his shock pike, the Guard spun and twirled it around his body in an intricate kata before breaking into a run and leaping into the air, the pike pointed straight down right at Vader’s chest panel.

The Guard never saw him snatch the lightsaber off his belt and ignite it. Never rising off his knee, Vader grabbed his cape and snapped it up and forward, entwining it around the Guard’s staff. He yanked the Guard down and thrust the saber through the man’s torso. Vader then leapt to his feet, spun back and around the Guard, sliced the saber behind him and decapitated the Guard before he even hit the ground. 

As the Guard’s helmeted head and pike rolled across the marble floors, Vader straightened himself, switched his lightsaber off, hooked it back onto his belt, and asked, “Anyone else care to share his thoughts?” Unsurprisingly, he was met with silence as every man in the room immediately tried to think of nothing. He addressed the Royal Guards. “Extend my deepest condolences to the Emperor.” With that, he released his stormtroopers from their Force-hold, casually stepped over the corpse, and glided out of the receiving hall, forcing his troopers to jog behind him.

As they strode through the Palace toward his shuttlecraft, Vader ordered, “Sergeant Kreel.”

The Sergeant came up to Vader’s side. “Yes, my Lord.”

"You and your squad will go to the ISB Headquarters, Interrogation Division. There you will fetch Madame Sa'thraxxx and bring her to my fortress."

* * *

The old man’s screams echoed through the cold empty starkness of the torture room, deadening the POP of his shoulders being pulled from their sockets.

"Not exactly the way you thought it would end, is it?" asked a hushed, amused contralto. "You had it all planned—retire to a lovely green temperate world, open a small curio shop, and live out the rest of your days free and relaxed, unfettered by the strife of the surrounding galaxy."

The massive wheel-like structure he was stretched on rotated forward, gears whining, bringing him level with his Inquisitor. She stood with a relaxed casual air, her back to him, one long hand set upon the lazy curve of her slender hip while the other fingered a glimmer-spice cigarette. Her blood-red leather bodysuit encased her like a second skin, with straps and buckles accentuating her most pleasing physical features, the back cut out from the high stiff collar all the way down to the subtle dimples just above her buttocks. Leather stiletto boots the same hue hugged her taut thighs. Despite his agony, he glared a hole through the intricate braided hairstyle into the back of his torturer's skull. 

"But," Lylla Sa'thraxxx sighed wearily, bringing the glimmer-spice cigarette to her lips and taking a long, deliberate drag, "for some reason, you felt you needed to get involved.” She blew the smoke out in rings. “Kashyyk not exciting enough for your old bones, was that it? Or does the glorious progress of our esteemed Empire rattle your sensibilities?"

"Glorious progress," spat the old man through harsh breaths. "Is that what you call enslaving the Wookiees—"

The elegance of her hands betrayed the speed and ferociousness with which she could use them. Spinning around, she paced only two steps before smashing her lead-weighted gloved fist across his aged jaw. “You will speak ONLY when you tell me what I want to hear!" Grabbing a fistful of his white hair, she jerked his head up and forward, forcing him to stare into her silver eyes. "That cargo ship contained over two thousand Wookiee slaves en route to a classified Imperial labor destination. And then, all of the sudden, two hundred of them were ARMED with blasters-- blasters you smuggled onboard in crates from your shop. Now I will ask you again—who was the Rebel spy that engineered that revolt, and where did that ship go?"

The old man's answer came in the form of bloody saliva that hit just under her kohl-smudged eye. A slow, amused smirk played across Lylla's full scarlet lips as she released the old man's hair and delicately wiped the spittle away. Taking one last drag off the joint, she leaned in, her lips just grazing his own, and blew the smoke down his throat as she purred, "Wrong answer."

With that, she pressed a tiny button on the remote fastened to her belt, sending shocks of electricity through the electrodes clamped on the old man's nipples and privates under his tattered clothing. His screams tore around the barren walls once again, the old man thrashing in spite of his broken arms. With the press of another button, the torture wheel rotated again, sending him up and over to dangle upside down. Lylla's heels clicked the durasteel floor in an unhurried cadence as she met him on the other side. She waited until the man's head cleared mere centimeters from the floor before she stopped both rotation and current.

"You Rebels are charmingly stubborn.” She dropped the joint and crushed it under her boot. "And your tenacity for a man your age impresses me." She came to stand above him, planting a boot on either side of his head. Slowly, she lowered herself into a crouch, grasping the side of the wheel for support, until the old man's nose was just a breath from her crotch. The old man sputtered, as the musk of her sex mingled with the scent of leather, wafting into his nostrils.

Watching the scene through the room’s holocameras, Interrogation Director Berblinn pulled his own nostrils wide in a disgusted sneer. "Trash," he hissed through his teeth.

"One must admit, Director," his younger male aide interjected, "she is effective."

"Oh yes, effective. Effective in befouling a noble profession to which I have dedicated my life with her wanton ways."

The aide looked nervously about their antechamber. "Please, sir. With all due respect to your wisdom and greatness, I feel the need to advise that you keep your voice down in regard to our newest Interrogator." 

The older man turned in his seat, looking down his nose at his aide. "Meaning?"

The younger man shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "There have been rumors, sir, that connect Interrogator Sa'thraxxx with—"

"I know perfectly well with whom she is affiliated, Braxone," The Director muttered. Braxone opened his mouth to warn him again, but was cut off by a curt wave of Berblinn's hand as Lylla spoke again through the speakers.

"Ah," Lylla sighed, her smile darkly satisfied, "you are not so old that you no longer appreciate the scent of a woman, hmmm?" She chuckled again as the old man choked and writhed under her. "Yes, it is hard to resist. They say that scent is the greatest aphrodisiac there is, driving men into a frenzied state of lust. Hopefully, the squad of stormtroopers holding your daughter has been able to keep themselves in check."

The old man stilled, and his aged eyes gaped in horror. "Wh…what?"

Lylla straightened her long legs, bending at the waist and tipping her head down until her eyes were parallel to the old man's. "Oh, did I not mention that before? My apologies." She pulled herself up to her full height. "She wasn't at all hard to find. A simple cross-reference of your name in the Imperial databanks told us of her location. And she was right here on the Imperial Throneworld, of all places. How convenient." She initiated the remote on her belt again, and the torture wheel rolled up and forward again.

"No, NO!" begged the old man as her whirled forward. "Please, she doesn't know anything about this—"

"Would you like to see her?" Lylla asked. Another flick of a tiny switch, and a hologram shot from the projector in the wall. A young woman was bound to a chair, her clothes ripped, mouth gagged, her eyes swollen, red, and terrified. Around her stood several white-armored stormtroopers, some with their helmets and gloves off. Their laughter was guttural and harsh as they groped her breasts and ran their hands through her thick brown hair. The girl cried through her gag, trying to writhe out of their reach.

The old man sobbed. Planting herself in front of him, Lylla picked a comlink off her belt and brought it to her lips. "They have behaved themselves, so far. But when the commander receives my order, they will partake of your daughter in any manner they like. My,” her smile grew wider, " 'bonus' to them, for a job well done in retrieving her so quickly."

"Please," pleaded the old man, hanging limply in his bonds, "please don't do this…"

"I won't," Lylla answered simply, raising her brows. She stepped toward him. "If you tell me where that ship went, and who your Rebel contact was. You tell me, and she goes free. It's easy."

He panted hard, his eyes slit. "You malignant bitch."

Lylla clicked her tongue against her teeth. "Again, wrong answer." She flicked the comlink on. "Sergeant—"

"Tatooine!!" he cried. His face compressed into an anguished grimace. "We sent it to Tatooine.” 

"Tatooine," she muttered. Lylla’s eyes slit. Between the two Mos spaceports and the hundreds of smugglers that ran their contraband out of them, the chances were too good that those slaves were dispersed throughout the galaxy by now. "Who was the ring leader? How did they get the clearance codes to land on Tatooine?" Lylla pressed her whole body against him. "Tell. Me."

He swallowed hard, and sunk his head. "A free Wookiee named Chewbacca. He was a smuggler who now works with the Rebel Alliance. He got the guns, I ran them through my shop. He knows Imperial clearance codes, he knows every smuggler in the galaxy."

"And where is he?"

"I don't know."

"Really?" she sighed. She lifted the comlink again. "Sergeant—"

"I DON'T KNOW!" he screamed. "I don't know where he is! Don't, please DON'T! I DON'T KNOw…" His cracked voice receded into hysterical sobs.

Lylla considered the weeping, broken elder for a moment before switching on the comlink. "Sergeant. Return the detainee to her home." She paused, piercing her silver-hued gaze into the old man's crying eyes, and drawled, “In your own time.” Then she turned and paced away.

"Please, don't let them hurt her," he begged.

Sa'thraxxx stopped and explained over her shoulder, "Examples must be made, my misguided, foolish old friend. The galaxy must acknowledge that those who spit in the face of our glorious Emperor will find justice swift and ruthless."

"Justice?" he wept bitterly. "You mean vengeance."

She turned back and shrugged. "Whatever." With a press of one last button on her belt, the old man's heart exploded in his chest as one last vicious current coursed through him. His broken lifeless body slumped on the torture wheel.

Lylla drew a long, shuddering breath. She clenched herself to keep the wash of arousal from soaking her suit. She walked to the wall and leaned against it, her head on her arm. A particularly effective torture session always left her feeling like this-- wanting, frustrated, sad, and very, very alone. "Where are you?" she breathed, her lips trembling. "Please, I need you." A sob shocked her throat. "I need you..."

She jerked up, remembering that she was still being recorded. She straightened herself, breathed, wiped the smudge of moisture from her eyes. Striding to the door, she palmed the lock-- and found herself face to face with the Director Berblinn and his aide standing on the other side.

Lylla cocked an eyebrow. "Did you get all that?"

"It has been recorded and is being sent to Intelligence Director Isaard as we speak, Madame Sa'thraxxx," Braxone answered, then cowered slightly at the sharp glance from Berblinn.

The display did not escape Lylla's notice. With a smirk and a nod, she chirped, "Good," as she lazily brushed between the two men and made her way down the corridor.

"Madame Sa'thraxxx!" Berblinn bellowed after her, "A word with you!"

Lylla never broke her long strides as she turned over her shoulder. "I'm sure we can discuss whatever you wish in my rest chamber, High Lord."

The Director turned a deepened purple. "Who exactly does that strumpet think she is?" he bit through his teeth as he burst after her. He, however, kept his anger in check as he followed her, saving it for the privacy of her chambers.

A turn of a corner and a few more steps brought them to Lylla's suite. She palmed the door and, without acknowledging her, threw her lead-weighted gloves at the young human servant girl inside. The girl scrambled to catch them, then lowered her head in reverence to the Director and his aide.

Lylla came about the large chair in front of her mirror and dropped herself in it. "And to what to do I owe the pleasure of this personal visit, Director?" she crooned as she stretched her long arms over her head.

Berblinn wasted no time with pleasantries. "Who authorized your use of a squad of stormtroopers?" he barked.

Lylla raised an eyebrow at his mirrored reflection. "I needed authorization? I was under the impression that Interrogators are provided complete autonomy."

"Within the confines of interrogation! Bringing in a family member is used ONLY when all other means of interrogation have failed! An old man like that wouldn't have lasted five more timeparts. There was no need to threaten in his daughter!"

Lylla spun the chair round to face him fully, lifting one long leg up to drape over the other. "He confessed, didn't he? We know what happened to that slave ship, and now we have a name." She snapped her fingers hastily at the young slave, who immediately came to her and began gingerly taking out the pins holding Lylla's intricate hairstyle. Lylla rested her head back. "I fail to understand this sudden bout of compassion Director, particularly where the Rebels are concerned.”

"Chaos with compassion!" Berblinn countered crustily. "Do you know the COST of authorizing a squad of troops?"

"There's a cost?"

He folded his arms within the sleeves of his sumptuous dark red robe as he took a long, calming breath. "Yes, Sa'thraxxx, there are costs. Fuel, transmission fees for holomessages, administration fees, and so on. Do you think credits are limitless--”

“Compared to what, Berblinn?” she snapped. “The Empire losing billions of credits in a labor force that just went ‘poof’?” 

Berblinn ignored her. “Not to mention taking those troopers off their assigned duties AND the public display of dragging the girl from her home-"

She narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t you tell me what this is really about?”

The Director drew a deep breath. "The destruction of Alderaan did not exactly have the effect the Emperor had anticipated." The High Lord explained. "There have been numerous reports of even more insurgencies rising, even here on the Coruscant--”

“The Imperial Center.”

‘DON’T CORRECT ME!” Berblinn exclaimed. Lylla enjoyed her tiny victory in angering him even more. He continued. “And now with the obliteration of the Death Star--"

"The destruction of the Death Star has merely tipped the scales, my Lord, not toppled them," Lylla said smoothly. A strange smile pulled her lip. "Are you not familiar with the Tarkin Doctrine?"

"Of course," he huffed.

"Then how can you argue my methods? If the only way to govern a principality as vast as an entire galaxy is through FEAR, then we, as His Majesty's Interrogators, are truly his finest weapons. I am quite proud to say that I knew Grand Moff Tarkin personally.” _VERY personally, Berblinn,_ she thought to herself. _Fucking Tarkin was well worth hacking into his personal logs._ “Which do you believe is more frightening, High Lord-- a battle station that you can plainly see?" She lifted her silver eyes to penetrate his. "Or the eyes watching from the shadows that you can not?" She smiled cruelly. "This is hardly the time to relax our grip, Director. If anything, we must tighten our hold even further on the hearts and minds of the populace."

The Director glared at Lylla for a brief moment. Then, quite unexpectedly, he chuckled. "You are an ambitious woman, Sa'thraxxx. But you are hardly Grand Moff Tarkin."

Her serpentine eyes slit. "Not yet." Suddenly she winced, growled, and spun her chair around, using its momentum to backhand her servant full force across the face. "What have I said about PULLING?" she flared.

The golden-haired girl cried out and dropped the pins and combs she held, bringing a shaking hand to her cheek. "Forgive me, Mistress," the girl whimpered, her eyes cast to the floor. "Your hair just grows so fast...the pins get snarled, it is difficult to remove them."

Lylla glared at her servant briefly before pursing her lips. She was correct, of course. Her first, and so far only, coupling with Darth Vader had exposed her to the Dark Side of the Force. Since then, her hair grew at an alarming rate. Every night, her servant girl would cut it up to her neck. By morning, it had grown to the middle of her back. Some days it would have to be cut twice.

She settled a delicate finger on the girl's cheek. "Just...be...careful," she advised in a throaty murmur, sliding the finger down her throat, letting it brush just slightly over the girl's small breast before dropping it back into her lap. Spinning the chair round, she leaned her head back. "Continue." The humiliated girl picked a clean comb from the dressing table and resumed her work on Lylla's black-streaked scarlet hair. Sa'thraxxx opened one silver eye, glancing down her nose at Berblinn. "You're still here?" She sighed wearily, waving a lazy hand. "Fine-- from now on, no troops without your expressed authorization, Director. Understood." When awaited response did not come immediately, she opened the other eye. "Was there anything else?"

A slow smile soured Berblinn's sagging face. "By all dimensions of the Force," he chuckled dimly, shaking his head, "what does Lord Vader possibly see in you?"

The girl gasped, dropping her second comb on the durasteel floor. Even the silver protocol droid stationed in the suite's corner reacted, raising his metal hands in front of his plastine eyes and turning into the wall. Braxone rolled his eyes back and seemed to shrink several centimeters down into his uniform, as if that could possibly hide him from the repercussions of Berblinn's foolhardiness. But Berblinn held his ground in the thick silence of the room, the smirk still smeared across his face as he awaited this harpy's hysterical reaction…

__But even as rage simmered under the delicate ivory of her complexion, Lylla remained as cool and poised as an assassin's dagger…and smiled. Slowly she rose from her chair, uncoiling to her full stature before—and over—him. Placing her slim hands upon her hips, she leaned into him, just brushing the satin of her cheek against his, and her breath rolled gently over his ear as she murmured, "Would you like me to ask him for you when he returns, Director Berblinn?"_ _

__Berblinn remained still, staring directly ahead. "IF he returns, Inquisitor Sa'thraxxx." His grin spread even wider as he felt hers fall against his cheek. "Three months since the Death Star's destruction, and still no word from Lord Vader. You honestly believe His Majesty's propaganda, that Lord Vader is alive and well and currently hunting those responsible for the Death Star’s destruction? Your girlish trust exposes your inexperience. We who have served the Emperor for significantly more years know better."_ _

__Lylla froze as Berblinn pulled away from her, her eyes cast down as she fought to remain composed. He glanced at the protocol droid in the corner. "I commend His Lordship on his choice of tutors for you, my dear. Instead of a coarse, uncultured whore, you've become a somewhat more sophisticated one." He gestured to his aide, who was more than happy to follow his direction toward the door. Berblinn remained a brief second longer to glare Lylla down. "You strut your arrogance on borrowed time, Sa'thraxxx," he said before striding through the door._ _

__Lylla glared at the floor, her fists curling, her knuckles whitening. "Get out," she whispered._ _

__Her servant maid knit her brow. "Mistress?"_ _

__"Get out," Sa'thraxxx repeated in a low growl. Scared and confused, the girl hesitated. Lylla spun round, her silver eyes flashing, her lip pulled over her teeth in an animal snarl. "Are you fucking deaf?" Seizing the arms of the heavy chair, she screamed, "I SAID GET OUT!" before hurling it across the room. The girl screamed in kind, throwing her arms over her head and rushing past her mistress out the door. The protocol droid, far slower than his human counterpart, hobbled as fast as he could toward the door, only to be struck several times by bottles and jars his mistress threw at him._ _

__Lylla hurled her arms across her dressing table. Bottles, brushes, pins and small pots flew in all directions, shattering against the walls, spilling on the floor. Cosmetic powder exploded into the air, snowing lightly back down on her as she slumped to her knees and howled her anguish into the floor._ _

__Berblinn was right, and she knew it. Right about her, and about Vader. "He's dead," she whispered before exploding into tears. “He’s dead.” Her body racked violently with every word, every sob. "I don't belong here, I'm…I try to be like them…but they hate me…I should never have come here, I should have gotten on that supply cruiser…" She wiped her soaked face and her lip trembled. "Berblinn is right. What did he see in me…?"_ _

__Her chest hurt. She sat up, still weeping, and rubbed between her breasts as she attempted to calm herself. Her chamber door chimed. Lylla threw her head up and shrieked, “I have NOTHING to say to you, Berblinn!!” It chimed again. She pushed herself off the floor, lunged at the doors, and slammed the controls with her palm, ready to unleash all the fury of the nine hells on that insufferable slacked-jowled fat bastard---_ _

__Only to find herself facing a squad of stormtroopers._ _

__One stepped forward. “Madame Sa’thraxxx. We are ordered by Lord Vader to retrieve you and take you to his fortress.”_ _

__Her breaths were short and shallow as she furiously tried to understand what was happening…and then a wave of elation swept over her. “He’s...alive?” she whispered through her sobs. The Sergeant nodded once. Lylla threw her arms around the stormtrooper’s neck as she joyously wailed, “HE’S ALIVE!!!” The poor stormtrooper stiffened under her embrace and prayed Lord Vader would never hear of this._ _

__Lylla looked over the trooper’s shoulder to see High Lord Inquisitor Berblinn standing behind the squad. Berblinn's demeanor had taken a turn since his last visit only moments earlier—his jowls seemed to sink as low as his spirit, as did his posture, and his eyes were that of a cornered womprat. Lylla watched him struggle to meet her gaze. "It seems," he croaked before clearing his bulbous throat, "that I have underestimated our Lord Vader."_ _

__A crooked smile tugged Lylla's full lips as she held her hold on Sergeant Krell’s neck. "Yes, it seems you have."_ _

__“Madame,” Sergeant Kreel murmured through his vocoder, “I politely ask you to let me go.”_ _

__“Wha--yes, yes, of course.” Lylla let go of the trooper’s neck. She exhaled in glee, then frowned slightly as she spun and quickly looked into her suite’s mirror. Caked in powders, cosmetics, and perfumes, her hair was wild and disheveled, and her leather bodysuit smeared all over: She looked dreadful. Drawing a calming breath, running a hand over her hair and attempting to regain some dignity, Lylla said, "I will need a few moments to prepare myself."_ _

__"As you wish, Lady," Kreel replied._ _

__"Lady," Lylla repeated in an absent whisper. She smiled again. "Yes…a few moments…" She palmed the door closed and then frantically tore through her suite._ _

__From dressing area to fresher and back again, her frenzied movement only interrupted by a few moments of quick decision. _Makeup? Not enough time—just wash._ Clothing rained all over the suite as Lylla ripped her wardrobe apart. _This dress? No, too many laces…No, not this one, too complicated…yes, yes this one! Hair—oh gods, my HAIR…!__ _

__The few moments Lylla requested clicked away, and her door finally slid open. Berblinn glanced up and raised an eyebrow. She stood in the door, breathless and wild-eyed, and he couldn't help but be reminded of a thoroughbred equaa rearing against its gate before a race. Her face was fresh and clean of the heavy cosmetics she usually wore. Hastily and loosely tied behind her neck, her scarlet hair spilled down her back, messy tendrils veiling her face. Silver eyes sparked with feral eagerness, lips wet and parted and, if Berblinn didn't think he knew her better, he could almost say that she struck a likeness of unbridled innocence._ _

__She threw a scarlet wrap over her clingy black shimmersilk dress. "I'm ready."_ _

__"Very good, Lady," the Sergeant replied, nodding his helm in affirmation as he stepped aside to let her pass._ _

__She took a few steps forward, but stopped and turned around. The purity that had graced her features was gone, and the arrogant glint had returned to Lylla’s eyes. "Would you still like me to relay your question to Lord Vader, Director Berblinn?" she sang with a caustic lilt. Berblinn's response came in an explosion of furious red across his face and a fierce shaking of his jowls. Lylla's throaty laughter pealed down the dark corridor, blending with the cries of the tortured in aberrant harmony. Her boot heels drummed the floors as she practically sprinted toward the speeder bay._ _

__Kreel took a step to go, but stopped when Berblinn asked, "Lord Vader is at his fortress?"_ _

__"Yes, Director Berblinn."_ _

__"Very good, Sergeant, thank you." As the stormtroopers stepped in unison down the corridor, Berblinn picked a comlink out of his pocket. "Braxone."_ _

__"Yes, sir," Braxone's light tenor crackled over the com._ _

__"I'm on my way back. And I expect a direct channel to Lord Vader to be open by the time I return."_ _

____

* * *

The speeder raced through the day's end sky, skimming through peaks and crests of the Throneworld highest starscrapers. The thoroughfare they traveled was reserved for the Emperor and Lord Vader's use only, so theirs was the only speeder in their part of the atmosphere. The air was so clean and almost fragrant that high above the hive-world.

Lylla felt her heart would burst. She clutched the seat in front of her as she shifted her legs under her and knelt up, unconcerned of the danger it posed. She closed her eyes and smiled, filling her lungs, reveling in the feel of the wind whipping through her hair. To her, nothing else mattered but these next few hours.

When she finally opened her eyes, they were filled with the ebon citadel looming before them with black obsidian spires that stabbed into the indigo twilight skies. A terrifying yet magnificent monument of man's fortitude forged with machine's might. 

_Just like him_ , she thought.

"Madame Sa'thraxxx," the Sergeant sitting in the front seat addressed her, "I suggest belting yourself in. We will be making our descent in a moment."

Lylla sank back into her seat, and clicked her restraint into place. She placed her hand over her heart, and when she felt its wild thump against her palm, a strange turmoil gripped her. _Why does my heart beat like this? she thought. He's a man, he's only a man, just like all the others, a means to an end, just like all the others…_

_But he isn’t, is he?_

Images and feelings swarmed her mind, memories of their night together on the now destroyed Death Star. He had shown her things, things that did not dwell in this mundane physical world, but were no less real. The dark magnificence of fallen angels had touched her, and there were times she still felt the heat of their lips upon her flesh, the feel of him inside of her, his searing kiss, his hunger for her. Then there were the corporeal changes; the blanching of her eyes, the mad growth of her scarlet hair, the black streaks of Dark Side striping through it, setting its claim on her.

But the nights…the long, unbearable nights she would lie in her new sumptuous—and empty—bed, staring at the ceiling for hours. She bitterly recalled how, as she lay there, she would slide her hand down to her mound,and bring herself to orgasm as she cried for his return.

The speeder descended toward the gaping maw of the fortress's speeder port, and Lylla's eyes slit. Her elation, unexpectedly, seeped into quiet anger. _What have you done to me, Vader?_

* * *

"Of course, it pains me to bring you this news, Lord Vader." Berblinn's holographic jowls sank with conjured remorse. "But I was given little choice, I fear."

"I see." The Dark Lord paused. Berblinn opened his mouth to continue, but was cut off. "What is her record so far?"

"Er, well," Berblinn began, somewhat reluctantly, "We have been breaking her in on somewhat easier subjects—the elderly, addicts—"

"And?" 

Berblinn took a breath before admitting, "Full confessions from each subject. And all information checked out." 

"In what time?"

"All confessed in less than a standard day."

"So,” Vader began, “you felt it necessary to intrude upon my solitude to inform me that, much to your displeasure, my newest appointee to the ISB Interrogation Division is doing her job well."

This was not going as Berblinn had anticipated. He swallowed. "Force, no, my Lord! That's not what—"

"Do not take the Force's name in vain in my presence, if you please," Vader interjected with the perfect touch of threat.

Berblinn's earlier assurance was now completely shattered. He lowered his eyes. "Forgive me, Lord Vader. It was not my intention to question or insult you. I merely thought you should be informed of Interrogator Sathraxxx's behavior."

"And that is?"

Berblinn seemed to bristle ever so slightly to the Dark Lord's calm and composed tone, but he certainly became more daring as he exclaimed, "The woman is completely out of control! She is arrogant and willful; she absolutely lacks any respect for her superiors! Her dress is inappropriate at best. She refuses to wear the standard ISB uniform! Comes traipsing in wearing some—"

"Madame Sa'thraxxx's choice of wardrobe was a personal directive from me," Vader informed him. He continued as Berblinn gawked at him. "Her physical attractiveness complements her unique methods. Surely that has been proven?"

"That I cannot deny, my Lord," Berblinn acknowledged grudgingly. "However, that isn't the end of it. She beats her servant in public view—a most distasteful practice, one must admit. She partakes of glimmer-spice during interrogation! And then there is her complete lack of discretion regarding the nature of her relationship with you—"

"And what exactly IS the nature of her relationship with me, Director?"

Berblinn blubbered silently as he struggled to find a suitable answer. "I'm sure," he finally sputtered, "I do not know, Lord Vader, nor care to."

"I thought as much." He leaned toward Berblinn's holographic image. "Personality conflicts within the ISB do not concern me, Berblinn. Since Interrogator Sa'thraxxx appears to be performing her duties well, I will not tolerate any trivial reports regarding her methods. Understood?"

"Most clearly, my Lord Vader."

"However, as far as her behavior is concerned," Vader added, his tone quieter, "It will be dealt with accordingly."

Berblinn exhaled sharply as he bowed low. "I humbly thank you, Lord Vader."

Without acknowledging Berblinn any further, Vader switched the holocom off and collapsed back into the med-bed. It had taken substantial effort and the Force to appear fit in front of his troops, but once he arrived back to his fortress, his droids immediately rushed him to his medical chamber. He attempted deep breaths, but again, could not override the programmed rhythm of his respirator.

"Allow me, my Lord," his Two-One-Bee unit offered, extending one of its metal appendages and readjusting the panel on Vader's breastplate. The adjustment filled his mask with a gust of precious oxygen, and he inhaled deeply. With his remaining three appendages, Two-One-Bee delicately seared the last cable housing on Vader's cybernetic wrist closed. "Finished, my Lord. I have mended all cybernetic pathways."

Vader raised his ungloved cybernetic hands to his mask, opening and closing them, testing the mends. "How long before I can shed my armor?" he asked.

"A few more minutes, my Lord. Pressure and oxygen levels in your chambers at eighty-five percent." The medical droid glanced at the monitor. "Heart rate has returned to standard beat. Organic to synthetic blood ratio has been balanced. Blood oxygen levels returned to optimum. Brain scan shows no damage. You should take sustenance though, my Lord."

Insertion of his feeding tube did not sound particularly inviting. "Not now."

"Very well, my Lord." A soft alarm sounded from Vader's desk. "It seems Madame Sa'thraxxx has arrived."

"Bring her to my chambers," Vader instructed.

With a slight nod of its head, the Two-One-Bee unit backed up, turned, and glided across the onyx floor out the chamber doors. Vader lay on his med-bed, staring at the readouts across his lenses signifying his chamber's atmospheric levels, and sighed.

Disciplined by his Master. Forced to correct his mistress. Yes, this homecoming was turning out exactly as he had expected.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader is furious with Lylla's behavior while he was missing. Lylla is furious with Vader for abandoning her alone on the Throneworld. But their battle of wills only makes their attraction that much stronger. Vader senses that the Dark Side favors Lylla and wants to know more. Sidious makes his presence known, but Vader distracts him as he compels Lylla to reveal her past. 
> 
> Palpatine enlists an enemy of Vader's in a scheme to drive a wedge between them.
> 
> While purging renegade Jedi on Fellenet, Vader tracks down a person from Lylla's past.

* * *

It didn't surprise Lylla that the palace was massive. What did surprise her was its lack of…well, anything. No furniture, no servants, no art, nothing that would suggest Vader's obvious vast wealth, save for the palace itself. In fact, there were no organic beings to be found anywhere. Just various makes of droids that would appear from the perpetual gloom of the place, rolling or stepping out from behind the staggering ebon pillars that held the lofted ceilings. She remembered a saying she’d heard once, "A man's home is the reflection of his soul." And here it was, laid before her; splendid, imposing, dark, cold, and empty.

"I know the feeling," she murmured.

"Pardon, Madame?"

Her attention dropped from the sprawling ceilings to the protocol droid in front of her. "What?"

It tilted its head. "Did you say something to me, Madame?"

"No," Lylla snapped. Her musing was quickly replaced by impatience. "How much further must we walk?"

"Not long, Madam. Here." The droid gestured to the open lift doors before them. Lylla brushed past the droid. But the droid stayed behind.

She lifted an eyebrow. "You're not coming?"

"No, Madame. Only Lord Vader's medical droids are allowed on his private floor. No one has ever been granted access…except you."

A self-satisfied smirk played across her features. "As it should be," she growled softly as the lift doors slid closed.

When the lift stopped, the doors opened to reveal yet another grand corridor. The hall had to have been a quarter-kilometer long. The Throneworld twilight ebbed through the majestic cathedral windows that lined the vast passage, dimming with every step she took.

She tried to walk the extensive corridor with patience but, as it had been since the very moment she had learned of his return, her desire overcame her reason. Before Lylla even knew it she was running down the black hall. The wind she created caught her scarlet wrap, lifting it up and off her shoulders. She stopped only once, hopping on one leg, then the next as she pulled off the high-heeled boots that impeded her before resuming her sprint. The enormous doors that awaited her swung open, and Lylla wasted no time running through them.

She stopped, however, when she realized she couldn't see a thing. And the air…heavy, hot, almost too dense to breathe, and she felt the same dull pressure in her ears as she did in his hyperbaric chamber on the Death Star. With the air so thick with oxygen, her head began to spin, but nevertheless she tried to force her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She looked above her to the only source of any light, a steel-strutted skylight that shown only the faintest glow from the city-planet below. She lowered her eyes, still struggling to see, when a form finally took shape. The dim light glinted off the sheen of the dome-shaped helmet over what appeared to be wide shoulders draped in a black cloak…

"Vader," she purred. She took careful steps toward the figure, careful to avoid any obstacles, before lunging forward and throwing her arms around the form—only to have it topple in her grasp. She screamed when the helmet clanged across the hard marble floor and the heavy black cloak pooled at her feet.

"Don't move."

Lylla shrieked again. Her eyes darted through the darkness. "My Lord—"

"And don't speak." His voice was different, higher in pitch and hoarse. With the thick air, his helmet lying on the floor, and his voice unaltered, Lylla assumed the Dark Lord was completely unarmored. "Move back into the light,” he said. “I want a look at you." He was quiet and unmistakably angry. 

The desire that had flustered her only moments before was giving way to dread. Hesitant, she stepped into the diffused circle of the skylight. Her lip trembled, but she raised her chin into the light to allow better viewing.

Many long, tense moments passed before the Dark Lord spoke again. "You are too thin, Sa'thraxxx," the voice rumbled. It came from all around her as he circled her. She heard the faintest sounds come from the dark, the barely audible whirs of robotic gears, a soft clink every time he took a step, but could still see nothing. "One would think that with your newfound fortune, a decent meal would have made its way to your lips. You are no longer a slave." A pause. "Or are you?"

Something seized her by the throat from behind and yanked her back against a wall of skin and muscle. She tried to scream, but couldn’t breathe. She thrashed and clawed at the clamp around her throat…but stilled when she realized it wasn't a clamp at all. It was a hand hewn of wire and durasteel.

Another metal hand plunged down the neckline of her dress and groped her breasts. But it was gone as quickly, and as it appeared in front of her face, a slim joint of glimmer-spice was pinched between its metal digits. "A slave to this?"

Oh gods, she forgot it was there, hidden inside a tiny pocket. Her voice came out a strangled squeak. "Vader—"

"You are not fit to utter my name.” His whisper was like acid in her ear. "Director Berblinn has just informed me of your conduct of recent months, Sa'thraxxx."

Lylla winced in spite of her immediate peril. _That bastard son of a galley whore,_ she thought dourly.

Vader pulled her up and tight against his hard scarred chest, her toes brushing the floor, and his fingers crushed harder around her throat. He bit out every word. "I lifted you from bondage, I bestowed you with wealth, I handed you the power of fear and privilege, and how do you repay me? With arrogance, with indiscretion, with ADDICTION!" He crushed the joint between his metal fingers in front of her eyes, letting it pepper to the floor. "I will NOT be humiliated by the likes of YOU! Give me one sound reason why I should not kill you where you stand?”

Lylla's body went limp within his grip. Her Lord’s favor was slipping away, along with her consciousness. And if she lost that, she wouldn't want to go on. “I can't,” she rasped.

Vader opened himself to her emotions. He expected the usual—fear, terror, desperation. But instead, he felt… heartbreak. Disgrace that she had displeased him. And complete acceptance of her fate, at his hands. His lips still against her ear, he saw the sparkle of a single tear slide down her cheek. 

A grimace smeared across his face. The metal hand snapped open. Lylla dropped to the floor, collapsing to her hands and knees, sucking hoarse breaths of the heavy air into her starved lungs. Vader slipped back into the darkness. "Perhaps I was mistaken about you," he growled. "Perhaps you are not worthy of my favor."

Lylla's desperate breaths slowed, and Vader immediately felt her desolation turn into white-hot anger. She raised her head. "Oh," she growled back, her lip pulling up, "but I was worthy enough to _fuck_ , wasn't I, Vader?" She chewed his name through her teeth.

"You dare take that tone with me, girl!" Vader roared.

"Yes, I dare!" Lylla shot back, narrowing her eyes into silver blades. "When you threaten me without hearing me out, I dare! When you disappear for months and don't tell me where you are—"

"I was stranded on Vaal!" he bellowed. "I crash landed, my ship was destroyed, I had no transmitter, no sustenance, nothing! Fighting my way through beasts and predators for weeks to get to a communications post! So forgive me, Lady," he snarled, "if I couldn't return quickly enough to coddle you."

"YOU LEFT ME HERE!" she screamed. She beat her fists against the hard floor. "You told me it would only be a few days, after you had defeated the Rebels! You left me here, alone, at the mercy of those Imperial skiv-wolves! Berblinn, Isaard, all of them, calling me a whore, laughing at me… " A heavy sob wracked her body. "I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to act! So yes, I did imply that we were lovers—simply to frighten them, to make them…just leave me alone!" She sat back on her feet and pressed her palms against her soaking eyes. "I…wanted…to be strong, feared, like…you."

"Is that how you think I behave?" Vader asked. "Like an insufferable child?"

Lylla let out a frustrated shriek and hit the floor again. "Show yourself, damn it! Why do you constantly hide from me? First you blind me, and now you lurk in the dark! If you are going to kill me, then face me!"

A heavy metallic THUNK came towards her, then another. Before she could retreat, the metal hands had clamped her by the shoulders and pulled her off the floor. She sucked a breath to scream, but then stopped. She gaped at his face, now just a breath from hers. Burn-scarred skin stretched over chiseled cheekbones, lips pulled back from his teeth in anger. But the blue eyes she remembered now burned a seething yellow shot with red. "Is this what you want?" he hissed, spit hitting her lip. "Is this what you wanted to see?"

"Yes, damn you!" Lylla spat back.

He twisted his hand into her hair and jerked her head back. "Foolish, infuriating girl!” he roared. “I could burst your heart with a mere thought—"

"THEN DO IT!!" she screamed. Even with her head forced back, Lylla glared him down, shaking with rage even as her eyes filled with tears. "If I am nothing to you, if I have lost your favor forever, then I'd rather be DEAD." She clenched her eyes shut. "What have you done to me? I was strong, I relied on no one but myself, I didn’t need ANYONE before you!”

“Yes, you were flourishing as Imperial property,” Vader snarled.

She began to cry. “I hate you. I hate that you've made me so weak!" Captured and breathless, Lylla struggled against him. “I hate you…” Her body quaked with sobbing and her delicious anger blazed through the Force. 

Caged in his arms and completely at his mercy, Vader realized he had never held a woman like this before, so forcibly, so _possessively_. He could never have done this with... _her_ : He would have terrorized her, so he had always restrained himself, no matter how fiercely he wanted to. But Lylla… Lylla was a furious feminine animal, a ravishing beast of fire and rage and sex. He touched her with the Force and, despite her outward fight, she was wildly aroused. His cock swelled hard, her cries in his ears. 

His hand still snared in her hair, he forced her face to his... and caught the tears running down her cheeks on his tongue, relishing the burn of their salt. He met her stunned wet eyes. “I must bring you to tears more often, my girl,” he said in a deep growl. “You are _exquisite_ when you cry.” Before she could respond in any way, Vader savagely took her mouth, his tongue assaulting hers. 

Lylla stiffened at first in shock, but only for the briefest moment. The hesitancy and uncertainty of their first encounter was gone, replaced by the raw fury and passion that she knew him capable of and had so coveted these last few months. She fervently kissed him back, plundering his tongue with her own. When his cybernetic hands slid down to grasp her buttocks, she instinctively took the cue and clamped her long legs around his waist while snaking her arms around his neck. Through her dress, she could feel that he was naked—and hard for her.

Vader broke off the kiss, but still trapped her against him. They panted against each other, staring into the other's eyes. His digits slid into her wild hair again and pulled her head back, albeit far more gently this time, and his teeth grazed the satin column of her throat, working up to her earlobe. Lylla drew a sharp breath, and ground her mound against his rigid erection. "Am I forgiven?" she whispered huskily into his ear.

Vader pulled back to meet her eyes. "Not quite." He held her in his glare. "You are insolent and careless, Sa'thraxxx—"

"Lylla. Call me Lylla. Please."

He raised a hairless eyebrow. “You do not care for the name I gave you?”

“Oh no, my Lord, I cherish it,” she breathed, burying her face into his neck. “But... it’s what they call me. I’ve only heard it snarled at me in disgust.”

The yellow in his eyes sparked with quiet anger-- not at her, but at those fatuous career Inquisitors who denigrated her Sith name in her ears. He took her earlobe into his teeth again. “Sa’thraxxx…” he half-whispered, half-growled, elongating the hiss of her name. She responded with a breath and a shiver. “That is how you will hear it from now on. Understood?”

“Yes, my Lord,” Lylla moaned back. Vader pulled back and stared at her intently, with a look that she could only describe as bemused. “What is it?” she asked.

"Why do you not fear me, Lylla?" Vader asked, quietly yet earnestly. 

She smiled slightly. "Why do you want me, Vader?" she asked. “Is it because I don't fear you?" She caressed his lips with her breath. "Because I understand you?"

She did. Vader looked into her very essence, and found all of his rage, hate, and emptiness reflected back to him. Had Lylla any Force-sensitivity, she would have made a fine apprentice. And yet, the darkness of her aura was unlike any he had ever encountered from someone Force-blind. The fact that she not only survived her intense exposure to the Dark Side, but was physically changed by it, indicated that Lylla was special. While she couldn’t use the Force, Vader sensed that she could be very useful to him in other ways than just carnally.

But then, dread darkened his thoughts. The Emperor may feel the same way once he sensed her uniqueness.

He slowly released her until her feet touched the floor, and unhooked her arms from his neck. Before Lylla had the chance to protest, he had already slipped back into the shadows. How does he move that fast? she thought, perturbed. She was about to vent her frustration when he said, "The Emperor knows of you."

She cocked an eyebrow. "And?"

"Now is not the time to play the innocent, Lylla."

She knit her brow. "Is that bad?"

"It is…unfortunate." A pause. "He wants to meet you."

"What?" she gasped. "The Emperor?"

"It is not the honor you perceive it to be. He wants to study you, twist you, find ways to use you against me."

"That will never happen—"

"Do not be too certain," he replied sourly.

She furrowed her brow in confusion. "But I thought…you were his heir, his second—"

"I am…" he began, but then stopped. "He is my Master. I must obey him in all things."

“Master? What do you mean, ‘Master’?” Lylla tried to determine what he was saying. “You mean...like his slave?”

 _One could put it that way_ , he bitterly mused. “His apprentice.”

“Oh.” She didn’t quite understand, but she did glean that this was a not relationship based on friendship or trust. She had only seen holopics of the Emperor, a tiny troll of a man, swallowed by dark robes, with bony hands and a twist in his face that could sort of be described as a smile. That was when she made the connection. “Is the Emperor a mage? Like you?”

“Mage?” he asked.

“A magician, a sorcerer. That’s what we called them on Fellenet.” 

Vader knit his brow. “There are many of these on Fellenet?”

Lylla shrugged. “A few. Travelers, entertainers. No one as powerful as you, though. They just do tricks, make things float in the air, make people do and say silly things, tell fortunes. For money.” 

_Jedi_ , Vader thought. Or untrained Force-sensitives blaspheming their powers on circus tricks. Vader cracked a small smile-- Lylla had just led him to renegade Force-users and she didn’t even know it. Yes, very useful. It seemed Fellenet would be his next destination.

He answered her question. “Yes, he is like me. But stronger.”

“Stronger?” Lylla said, incredulous. “I can’t believe that. That little bog-toad couldn’t lift an eyelid.”

“I would watch your words carefully, Lylla.”

She shrugged again. “Why? He’s not here.”

“Not yet. But he will be.”

“Wait--what?” she yelped. “He’s COMING HERE?”

“You misunderstand. He can see us through the Force. He wants to…” A hard pause. “Watch us.”

“Watch us? Watch us do wha--” The answer felt like it fell on her head. “You mean…?”

“Yes,” Vader exhaled. "He wants to be certain that you are worthy of my favor." He turned back to Lylla standing in the dim circle of light. She stood still and silent with her mouth agape and her expression blank. But then, quite suddenly, she began to laugh. A soft giggle at first, it escalated into hearty laughter that pealed off every surface of the chamber. 

His wrath smoldered. "You find this _amusing_?"

"I…I find it…" she gasped between cackles, "Very, very funny!" This sent her into another round of inappropriate laughter.

"I fail to see the humor,” he rumbled,

Lylla straightened herself up, breathing deeply to regain her control. "Men! Whether slave or king, you all want the same thing! You are simple creatures."

"What do you mean?"

"The Emperor is nothing more than a horny old stone-goat is what I mean!" she exclaimed. "He doesn't care that I'm worthy of you—he wants a show!” Another fit threatened to surface, but she clamped her hand over her mouth and managed to force it down. “Why, the old, wrinkled voyeur! Who knew he had it in him?”

"Trust me, Lylla,” Vader warned, “That is not all he wants.” 

Her mirth suddenly soured. “But it’s partly what he wants.” She ran her slender hands through her unruly mane, "I was a pleasure slave, a thrall. I have performed for unseen eyes many times. I know what this is, and I know why he wants it. Because he can’t do it.” She met his glare and cocked an eyebrow. “Seems you are stronger than he is in _one_ aspect, my Lord.” Her laughter returned, but now it was quiet and bitter. “Masters. No matter who they are, they all play the same pathetic little games.”

Vader’s loins tightened. Dark. Fearless. Battered but never broken. His spies on the Death Star had told him much, but they hadn’t told him everything about Lylla. He wanted to know everything.

She turned away and took a few steps, her head bent down as if in thought. Finally, she turned over her shoulder. "Well then," she purred, as that sultry smile once again graced her lips, "shall we give him what he wants?" Her hands floated to her shoulders, where she pinched the ties holding her dress and pulled them loose. "Shall we show him what he'll NEVER have?"

The clingy black dress slid languorously down her body to pool around her ankles. She pulled up her black-streaked scarlet tresses, allowing Vader's eyes to rake over her backside. Standing in the dim light, her body could have been carved from ivory. It bathed her slim muscles, the subtle curve of her back and buttocks and down her long, slender legs.

A face glimmered in his mind. Soft, oval, with cheeks kissed golden by the bright Naboo sun, long chocolate ringlets that spilled over her shoulders, and large, brown eyes… 

He looked at the face here, now, slyly turned over her shoulder. Alabaster with sharp cheekbones, silver serpentine eyes slit with desire, a wild halo of red and black hair, and a wide, ravenous mouth that looked as though it could devour a man's soul.

_Anakin, I don't even know you anymore…_

But Lylla knew him.

_You are going down a path I cannot follow…_

Lylla would not only follow him, she would bolt down that path and gorge upon everything the Dark Side could offer her. In every way, they were The Light and The Dark. Padme, his angel bride. Lylla, his demon whore.

"Turn around," he demanded quietly.

"Mm mm mm," she hummed, wagging her finger over her shoulder. "You come here, into the light. It's only fair." Her smile waned a bit. "Please, my Lord. Please let me see you." 

She heard the soft whirs of his cybernetics once more. Eventually, Vader stepped into the circle of diffused light. Lylla gasped, and her mouth fell open, but Vader sensed that her reaction was not of horror, but wonder. She turned fully around and came to him. He was pale, paler than she was. His cybernetic limbs were fashioned to mimic human arms and legs, with cabling and durasteel replacing flesh and bone. She touched his shoulder ever so slightly, but even then Vader tensed. She looked into his eyes. “No one has ever touched you without your armor, have they?” 

“Only medical droids,” he answered.

Lylla’s eyes widened, silently asking for consent, which he gave with a nod. Gingerly, she traced the maze of his scars down his pale arm with her fingertip to just below where his powerful bicep inserted into the housing of his cybernetic limb. “Does it hurt?”

“No pity, Lylla.” Lylla understood then that Vader would never let on how much pain he was in. She ran her palm down his mechanical arm, caressing it as if it were his flesh, and took his cybernetic hand. Raising it to her lips, she selected one of his digits, and ran the tip over her wet lips. “Never, my Lord,” she murmured. 

Her hands became bolder. She ran them both down his expansive chest, marred as it was yet like brick under her touch. There was an intricate system of tubes and circuitry over his heart that she carefully worked round before lightly passing her thumbs over his nipples. Lylla turned her hands fingers-down and caressed him lower. Even through the scars, she could see and feel the cuts of wrought muscle and sinew in his abdomen. She set her fingers into the dents of the V of muscle that ran to his loins and followed the lines down.

“So,” Vader murmured, “do you still think of me as a man?”

Lylla drew a ragged breath. His pallor, his scars and his injuries didn’t detract from his presence at all; in fact, he looked even more formidable, a warrior prince who survived that which would have killed any other man. He was the Lord of the Sith, the most powerful being she had ever encountered. “No,” she answered softly. “I think you are a god.” Slowly, Lylla lowered herself to her knees, running her lips down his body, and nuzzled the crease between his thigh and his cock; she could still smell the leather of his suit mixed with his male scent. Capturing the head into her soft, hungry mouth, she opened her throat and took his shaft down to the hilt. 

Vader sucked a rough breath into his lungs, entwining his metal fingers into her lush hair once more. Her throat squeezed around him as she fondled his balls. She looked up and met his flame-colored eyes with hers of silver. He thrusted even further down her throat and when her eyes teared up, a snarl smeared his lips: She was his. His to use, to claim in ways _she_ would never let him. His and _only_ his.

_*Is she now...boy?*_

He was there, the Emperor, slinking into the undercurrents of Vader’s mind, that insipid, yellowed grin oozing through his consciousness. When she felt him soften, Lylla knew immediately what was happening. She drew back and looked up. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

Vader slid his hand from her hair to cup her face. "Yes."

She nuzzled the hand with her cheek, still gazing up at him. “Remember,” she purred, a vicious smile spreading her lips, “what he’ll NEVER have.” She took him into her mouth again, fully intent of awakening his lust and blocking that old fool from his mind…

Vader lunged down, seized her by the shoulders, and pulled her to her feet. He then gripped her wrists and thrust them up over her head. Lylla's discarded dress sailed through the air. She heard the fabric rip as the sleeves spun themselves around her arms. The skirt shot to the skylight, shredding into streamers that tied themselves to the steel struts. Lylla found herself bound and hanging, her toes barely touching the floor. She threw a shocked look at Vader. And for the first time, she saw his face stretch into a full smile. "Comfortable?" he murmured. His scarlet-gold eyes were almost glowing. 

Her breaths came quick and deep as her arousal quickened. "Yes, Vader."

He gripped the back of her neck and forced her face to his. "Your familiarity is inappropriate, Sa'thraxxx,” he whispered against her lips. “Yes, whom?"

"Yes, Lord Vader!" she grunted, never attempting to hide the smile on her lips.

"Better." So, she found pleasure playing the victim as well as the torturer. He had surmised so much, one's Inquisitor often did. But Berblinn’s dossier aside...

He scraped his teeth down her throat and enjoyed her groans. His mouth moved down over her shoulders, to her breasts, gorging on her silken skin. He pinned her against him, metal digits digging into her flesh, and deeply inhaled her fragrance. She arched into him as he feasted down her body, and threw her head back when he grazed down below her navel. Vader flung Lylla's legs over his shoulders, clamped his metal hands around her buttocks, and thrust his tongue into her mound.

Lylla wrapped her legs over his shoulders, and ground into his mouth. He growled into her cunt and his tongue lapped a primal beat on her clit, sending shock waves through her. Her scent, her honey, her unbridled response were beyond intoxicating. Her hips and roars responded in kind, keeping in the rhythm of his tongue. Vader sank his teeth into her mons. Lylla pulled at her restraints, and a fluent string of Huttese profanity poured from her in grunts. _Multilingual_ , he mused as he devoured her. _Impressive_.

_*Yes, quite. And such abandon. Rather practiced at this, isn’t she…?*_

Sidious meant it to be humiliating. But Vader snarled a smile as he thought, _Yes. She is._ He rose back to his feet, gripped Lylla’s hips, maneuvered her onto his cock, and took her in one thrust. Lylla sucked a pained gasp as he filled her. He moved her in long, slow, deep strokes. She convulsed around his shaft as she gripped her restraints and met his thrusts. He pulled her to him and devoured her neck until her cries ricocheted throughout the room. 

But just as suddenly as he took her, he pulled out of her and released his hold on her. Lylla swung back down. Panting furiously, she gawked at him. "Why… what—" Vader took her hair again and plunged his tongue into her mouth, intent on making her taste her own juices. She groaned into his mouth, still writhing against him. He broke off the kiss, sliding a finger between the lips of her soaking slit. "Do you wish me to bring you release, Lylla?"

The coolness of his digit inside her warm slickness sent shivers through her. "Oh, yes," she gasped.

He thrust another finger into her. "Beg me."

"Please," she cried, her hips pumping furiously, “please, my lord—"

Just as quickly as he had thrust them in her, Vader pulled his fingers out and stepped away. "In time." Lylla hung taut in her bonds, whimpering, her eyes beseeching and baffled. He began to circle her. "You will do something for me first. Then I will give you release."

"Anything," she moaned, still undulating in her bonds. "I'll do anything for you, my Lord."

He came back around her, and placed his hands on either side of her face, pulling her forward, and murmured, "Show me."

"What?

"Open yourself to me," he intoned softly, brushing her lips ever so lightly with his own, "as you did on the Death Star. Show me your life."

Her lip quivered, and she tried to break from his grip. "No."

He tightened his hold. "You deny me?"

"Yes…no…I mean…" She began to tremble, and Vader saw the beginning of tears in her eyes. "Won't HE see as well?"

"Yes. It doesn't matter, Sa'thraxxx. I'm sure he's already delved into your past. He knows who and what you are."

"Then why?"

"Because," he whispered, "I want to know."

"Please…my lord,” she whimpered, “…don't make me do this."

He ran a thumb under her eye, and caught a tear. "Why not?"

"I'm ashamed." She cast her eyes down. "I don't want you to see…where I came from."

“We have far more in common than you think, Lylla," he said. "Look at me." She did, and saw that his eyes had turned from fierce yellow back into the crystal blue she remembered. Even as he held her head, he stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. "Do you trust me?"

Lylla nuzzled his hand. "With my life."

"Then…" He leaned in, holding her still in his grasp. "Show me."

After a moment's uncertainty, Lylla conceded. She closed her eyes, and cleared her mind. She felt him slip into her thoughts, a mist that wrapped itself around her soul. Within her mind, she looked up to the sky, and again she saw the black heavens streak brilliant with flashes of scarlet lightning. But the dark angels did not come to her this time, they merely settled in the distance, upon ebon peaks afar…and looked down to experience her first day as a pleasure slave all over again.

As did Vader…

_*** "Sold!_

_Fellenet was a dank, overcast world. The merciless rain pounded the deck of the rickety platform, soaking the long scarlet hair of the nude girl-child standing in the center. About a score of males, human and non alike, gathered about the stage. The girl shivered, crossing her arms over herself as the groans and curses of those who lost the auction spread throughout the crowd. Judging from the budding of her breasts and the faint scarlet hairs that grew from her young womanhood, Vader presumed she was no more than twelve years old._

_The voices of the auctioneer and of the lucky winner rose above the pounding rain…_

_"She had better be what you promise. Untouched."_

_"I would cheat an upstanding peer of the territory such as you, Magistrate? Besides, I have the word of her father that she remains pure, despite her brothers' attempts."_

_The Magistrate laughed a bit. “Well, that should keep him in Corellian whiskey and Black Razor for a few months, ey, Talimande?” The men laughed a bit. Vader looked back to young Lylla. He was unable to decipher her tears from the rain, although he could clearly feel the terror through her soul. His anger reared. Sold as a pleasure slave. By her own father._

_The scene shifted to a dark corridor leading to large chamber doors. From behind the doors came the pained cries and terrified sobs of the scarlet-haired girl as she begged the Magistrate to stop._

_“Quiet, girl! Do you want to wake up my wife? Just relax…you’ll enjoy it soon enough…” ***_

"Did you know what he was doing to you?" Vader asked.

"Oh yes. I knew."

“It hurt.".

"Like hell.” Lylla lifted her eyes to his. “No pity, my Lord.”

He smirked. “Never, Lylla.” His metal hand gently cupped her breast. "You were afraid?"

"At first. But then…I began to realize that I had…some power…"

_***Another shift, five years later. The girl was truly no longer a girl. Still young, yes, but taller, her breasts now filling her scant bra, her hips graced by a beaded dance belt, her buttocks fuller and rounder as she was on her knees, finishing her task on the house guard._

_A grunt, a thrust, a wipe across her lips, and the sound of pants fasteners. "You have half a standard hour, Lylla."_

_She rose to her feet. "Damn you, Grees. After everything I've done for you—"_

_"You know what'll happen to me, to both of us, if the Magistrate finds out? I'm being generous, Lylla." He opened the door._

_Vader watched her enter the office, take a seat behind a desk, and press a button on the holocom. A wizened old female face appeared in the air, wearing a soft, warm smile. "Welcome, youngling, to your sixth lesson in reading Aurebesh…"***_

"You taught yourself how to read," he said.

"I taught myself many things," she replied.

"And you continued your education, in the same manner, aboard the Death Star."

She gasped. "You knew about that?"

"I had been watching you for some time, Lylla. As you had been watching me.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Is there anything you don’t know about me, Vader?”

“Yes.”

_***They were in a smoky, dank room. Around a table sat several beings, sabaac cards and credits scattered on the table top, with only two men holding cards—her Master, and an extremely well dressed man. Jewels donned his fingers and throat, and his clothes were made from very expensive fabric.***_

"Malifino," she spat.

"A new Master?" Vader inquired, his lips brushing against her neck from behind her.

"The scum on the swamp of the universe," she clarified, her voice seething with hatred. She leaned back against him. "As you can guess, the Magistrate lost."

"And you were the prize." For a nanosecond, he touched the Emperor's psychic tendril, and smiled inwardly. Sidious was engrossed in the vision, which was exactly what Vader had hoped for. With the Emperor distracted, he felt free to cup Lylla’s breast as his other hand caressed her belly. But she tensed, and a wave of apprehension broke over her essence. "What is it?"

Her breathing quickened. "I don't want you to see this."

The metal hand settled around her throat, but it did not close. "I will see it. You will refuse me nothing, Sa'thraxxx." The hand slid from her throat and joined the other in fondling her breasts. "Nothing." 

Lylla sighed—whether from pleasure or defeat, she wasn't entirely certain. Supported by her restraints, she fell back against the Dark Lord and closed her eyes, allowing him again to watch her past.

_***Her new master's home was somewhat more opulent than her last. Her clothing, while still titillating, was sewn of finer fabric and custom made, fitting her better than the cheap dancing costumes her former master furnished. There were more females in his harem, numbering in the double digits. And the food was much better. Lylla's youth, her height, her scarlet hair and her overall brazen sexuality quickly made her a favorite of towering Baron Malifino, a regional shipping tycoon._

_That was not a good thing, for Malifino was a sexual sadist. The only way he could get aroused was to inflict as much physical pain and terror onto his bed-wench as she could take without dying or passing out. And Lylla had, unfortunately, a high pain tolerance that coincided with her insubordinate ways._

_Over the next two years, Lylla received more beatings than any of the other girls. If she fought Malifino back, it only aroused him more. If she didn't fight him, he beat her senseless and bloody, sometimes before he raped her, sometimes after. Trip after trip to the infirmary, session after session with the surgeon and the bone-knitters and the bacta tanks. Every time they healed her up, she would return just days later with cracked ribs or a broken jaw or a fractured arm. ***_

Lylla began to shake against Vader. Vader could hear the Emperor's maniacal cackling off in the distance of his consciousness. He knew he couldn't shield Lylla's memories from Sidious, but he could strengthen her, bring her through it. "You escaped him?" he breathed into her ear.

She hesitated before answering breathlessly, "In a manner of speaking."

"Show me."

_*** She was in another room, a library of sorts. Again, she had performed sexually for one of Malifino's aides for access to the library key. Her fingers flurried across the board of the holoputer, until the information she wanted appeared before her. Vader read the words on the projected screen:_

_Poisons Undetected In the Body After Death._

_The images came fast and furious, as did Lylla's execution of her plan. So many favors to perform, timing to get just perfect, the exhausting study of mixtures and formulas beyond her comprehension, but she persevered._

_And then the night came, when she came to his chambers, as she had many times before. A blow to her cheek came immediately upon entry, but she took it without screaming or fear. Things were different this time, for the Baron hadn't noticed the syringe tucked in Lylla's hand, the syringe she had stolen during her last trip to the infirmary._

_She was quick, and lethal. She swung her arm, and the needle plunged directly into Malifino's throat. Vader watched her snarl as she pushed the plunger down, watching the green ooze drain from the tube, watching Malifino's dumbfounded face as it turned pasty, then blue. He watched the brute fall to his knees, reaching for Lylla, pleading with her. Lylla answered his pleas with a kick to his face and a string of low Correllian curses to not only him, but to his entire, worthless line. She beat him with her fists, screaming, crying, laughing, exacting her revenge on him, venting her rage to the universe itself…***_

Vader dropped his hands, and came around to face her. Lylla hung from her restraints, her head bowed, her breaths fast and hoarse. He touched her chin, and gently lifted her eyes to face him. Her expression was blank, exhausted, but her eyes glittered with tears. "You killed your Master," he murmured.

Her lip quivered. "I had to."

"You were not afraid?"

"No," she answered firmly. "I knew that I could be put to death, but I didn't care. I could die happy knowing he was roasting in the dimensional hells. And I wouldn't die by his miserable hand."

Lylla saw the yellow spark just briefly in his eyes and the expression he wore, an expression she couldn’t entirely determine. But just as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone. "What happened after that?"

She sighed. "The constabulary arrived. Everyone knew I had killed him, but…no one turned me in. Even the estate doctor claimed it a heart attack. No one mourned him." 

“With his death, you should have been released from indenture. Why weren’t you?”

A bitter chuckle. "Seems tax evasion was another one of Malifino’s many talents. The Empire seized all of his assets, including the harem, and put me to work. I serviced Imperial ships and stations for seven years until I was transferred to the Death Star." She was silent for a moment before blurting, "I want to show you one more thing."

Vader nodded and, cupping her face, leaned into her again. She closed her eyes again and let him in…

_*** Her jaw dropped as she gawked at the monstrous sphere that rose within the viewport. Although it was named 'Death Star', the whole construction seemed alive somehow. It rotated slowly, majestically. Ships of all sizes and makes whirred around the thing, and the light of thousands of viewports blinked from the surface._

_She smiled proudly. This was it, the end of her journey, the ticket out of this life. The last five years had brought at least some prosperity; high-ranking Imperial officers had proven not only to be more dignified and less brutal, but generous to boot. And now, she would be a part of the Empire's greatest triumph, servicing its finest, best-paid personnel. She clutched the purse of credits she had hidden in her corset. It was only a matter of time before she could buy herself out._

_Final approach, and landing. Lylla swallowed hard—she was not well versed in space travel, and it always made her a bit motion sick. The whimpers and tense, squeaky whispers of the other pleasure slaves aboard were not helping. She turned and barked, "Keep it down, you pathetic little brats! You don't know how lucky you are!" The girls immediately fell silent, as the statuesque redhead already intimidated them._

_She led the other girls down the ramp, and enjoyed in the immediate impact she had on the officers in the bay. She purposely dropped her cowl over her shoulders, giving the officers a glimpse of creamy cleavage bound in her tight-fitting corset. A petty officer droned on regarding procedures and limits and what was expected of the girls and how fortunate they were and blah, blah blah. Lylla sighed, her attention drifting to the sheer enormity of the bay, the soaring ceilings, the stories of catwalks that lined the bulkhead…until her eyes held, and her breath caught in her throat._

_He strode heavily on the catwalk, flanked by several officers. A black tower of leather and flowing robes, the hangar lights glinted off his polished helm. His ebon cape caught the breeze he created with his stride and sheer size. The mask that covered his face was that of a gargoyle, yet his walk was that of a sovereign. His arms looked like they could split a Rancor's skull against the span of his chest, his legs as though they could crush whole planets under his boot. And she could hear his…breathing. It echoed through the bay, a low, hypnotic sound that at once startled and soothed her._

_Every officer and stormtrooper stopped what he was doing for the briefest of moments. Some dared to glance at the soaring behemoth, some didn't. But there was no mistaking the force of awe and fear that broke over the assembly, and she heard a name barely whispered amongst them…_

_Darth Vader._

_Lylla stood in her tracks, just as the other girls were being led to the brothel quarters, unable to take her eyes off him. Something stirred deep within her, a feeling she had always forced with every man she had been with. She grew wet, warm, and excitement flushed her entire being. She hoped that somehow, in some way, this magnificent manifestation of machine and man, would be a part of her destiny._

_A demon prince._

_A dark angel._

_And then…. he looked at her. It seemed as though he had...sensed her. He stopped at the catwalk's rail and peered down at her. The officers around continued to brief him on various aspects of progress and construction, but he paid them no heed. He didn't move, didn't speak and, of course, she couldn't see his expression. He merely…looked at her._

_"You!"_

_Lylla snapped out of the dark stranger's spell on her. She turned to see the petty officer stomp toward her. He grabbed her arm and dragged her out. "Keep up, and stop gawking! Do you know what Lord Vader could do to you?! Who do you think you are…?" ***_

The vision vanished, and the dimness of the chamber seeped back. Lylla opened her eyes, and gazed into Vader's. "I loved you the first moment I saw you," she murmured.

And the Emperor was gone.

Vader furrowed his brow as he sought out his Master's presence. But Sidious was nowhere to be found within the Force. A sick feeling began in his gut, but he immediately dismissed it. To hell with Palpatine.

He lifted his hand. The ripped dress unwound itself from the struts above, and unwrapped from Lylla's wrists. Gently, he caught her and cradled her into his arms. She nestled her cheek into the crook of his neck. The metal arms encircling felt cool against her skin in the oppressive humidity in the room. He carried her a few steps into the darkness and lowered her down. The smooth feel of silk greeted her, and she contentedly sank into the softness of what could only be a bed. She was quiet for a time. "Is the Emperor still watching?"

"No," Vader answered.

"Then it worked?"

"What do you mean?"

"I know you didn't want him watching us. You used my memories to distract him."

Her insight was uncanny. He patted the sweat off her body with the sheet as he contemplated everything he had just seen. She had killed her master. Without fear, without remorse. A mere pleasure slave. She did it to save her own life, but he had felt her savage satisfaction as she murdered the degenerate. She had taught herself to read, and studied many different subjects and languages. And she remained patient, she bided her time, utilizing her charms to convince her owners of her passion for them while secretly loathing them and using them to ensure her own survival. Born into despair, betrayed by fate for many years, until this moment when she lay in his arms.

He searched the Force, trying to find an answer, a sign. He had been alone for so many years. Perhaps after all this time, a new mate had finally presented herself. The perfect woman, a fitting consort… not for Anakin Skywalker, but for Darth Vader. He wouldn't find a queen.

He would create one. 

"I am impressed, Lylla,” he said.

“Impressed?” She gaped at him. That was not a word she was expecting.

“Yes,” he answered. "Your will is formidable, as are your cunning and your intelligence. You are still alive. You shouldn’t be.” He met her eyes. “You are worthy of my favor."

She exhaled heavily, flustered by the Dark Lord’s compliments, "But...you saw it. You saw where I came from. I was a slave—"

"I was born a slave." 

Her eyes widened. "What?"

"I was born on Tatooine, to a slave woman. Named Skywalker." He waited. "You do not recognize the name?"

"No. Should I?"

She was becoming more ideal with each passing moment. He smiled slightly. "No."

Lylla raised herself onto her elbow. "But…I thought you were royalty. A prince, perhaps—"

"I am a Lord of the Sith." His tone indicated that he had nothing more to say on the subject.

Lylla gaped at him, utterly aghast. Then she bolted upright and pulled him to her, crushing her lips into his and brazenly wrapping her hand around his shaft. She stroked him, firmly and smoothly. Vader responded with a primal grunt, roughly pinning her against him, taking her tongue with his own. He pressed her down onto her back and covered her with his body. Lylla caressed his cock, guiding him into her. He hooked one mechanical arm under her knee and pulled her leg up and high as he drove into her. Lylla wrapped her other leg around his back and raised her hips off the bed to pull him in. Regaining some control, Vader pumped her in a slow, heavy rhythm. He cast himself into the Force to soothe his raging desire and to ease the pain that gripped his body. 

He grabbed her wrists and pushed them apart, holding her helpless. Lylla tossed her head, both legs around him now, bucking beneath him, mouth agape, her hair wild and spread like dark flames. She keened as his cock filled her and claimed her as his.

So warm, so wet, so eager and taut. He bent his head and took her breast into his mouth, lathing her nipple, tugging with his teeth, before moving to the other. A sharp gasp shocked her body-- the sinister angels had returned, caressing her flesh with fingers of fire and kisses of frost. When she closed her eyes, she saw streaks of lighting lancing through a blood red sky. 

Vader lowered down and crushed her underneath him. “Look at me,” he commanded. She did. His hand was on her throat, and his eyes burned again. “Do you want this, Sa’thraxxx?”

“This?” she breathed.

“To be my mistress. My woman. Do you want this? TRULY want this?.”

Her eyes lit. “Yes, why wouldn’t I--”

“I’ll tell you why.” He thrust into her, eliciting a cry from her throat. His whisper was harsh. “My enemies will target you. There will be attempts on your life. The Emperor will have spies on you day and night. You will be in constant danger. Even from me.” His fingers tightened a whisper around her throat, and his voice burned from his chest. “ _Especially_ from me.”

Lylla panted, confused, aroused, and a little afraid. “From you? I don’t know what you mean--” Vader didn’t let her finish. He kissed her again, hard and possessively. But this was different; He wasn’t just kissing her. He was inhaling her into his mind. 

She struggled for a frightened second. But then her body felt like it was melting away from her bones, and the hymns of the night washed over her once more. The lighting behind her eyes streaked through the red skies again. But now, sparks and cinders danced above and around her, and a fountain of lava erupted in the distance

_***behind a ship, on a port. Lylla looked around her, at the chaos of the volcanic scene, the air as hot and poisoned as port exhaust. Then she saw him, and her jaw dropped._

_He was young, younger than she was now, just on that edge of becoming a man but not there yet. The winds fired up by the heat blew his sandy hair around his head, his body was lean and whole and dressed in dark robes. In his hand he held a lightsaber. His face, while smooth and beautiful, was marred by rage and madness._

_“Don't you see, we don't have to run away anymore. I have brought peace to the Republic. I am more powerful than the Chancellor. I can overthrow him, and together you and I can rule the galaxy. Make things the way we want them to be!”_

_“I don't believe what I'm hearing . . . Obi-Wan was right. You've changed.”_

_Lylla turned to the new voice across the pad. There stood a girl, petite, brunette. And very pregnant._

_“I don't want to hear any more about Obi-Wan!” he bellowed, encroaching on her. “The Jedi turned against me. Don't you turn against me, Padme!”_

_The girl’s anguish twisted her angelic face. “I don't know you anymore. Anakin, you're breaking my heart.” A sob broke from her throat. “I'll never stop loving you, but you are going down a path I can't follow.”_

_“Because of Obi-Wan?” he snarled._

_“Because of what you've done! Stop, stop now. Come back! I love you…”_

_He looked so tired, so lost. It seemed like he was about to break, to go to her… but then his face changed from exhaustion to seething anger when he looked past her and saw a man on the ship’s ramp. “Liar!” he yelled, pointing at the man. “Why is he here? WHAT ARE YOU TWO PLANNING? You're with him, you've betrayed me! You brought him here to kill me!”_

_The girl whipped around to look at the man coming down the ramp. “NO!” she cried out at him. She turned back to him. “Anakin. I swear ... I …”_

_He thrust his hand before him. The girl began to gasp, choke, and her hands flew to her throat. Her eyes begged him and released a storm of tears. He lurched at her, his perfect beauty torn ugly by rage and heartbreak, and he closed his hand into a tight fist. “LIAR! YOU HAVE BETRAYED ME! I AM THE MOST POWERFUL JEDI WHO EVER LIVED! AND YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR LACK OF FAITH!”_

_LIAR_

_LIAR_

_YOU BETRAYED ME--_

Lylla shrieked when she was sucked back into the red skies, through the ash and the smoke, and thrown back into her body. She bucked up off the bed, and her eyes sprang open when she realized Vader was still on top of her, still inside of her. She gaped up into his face, so different from his youth, and yet the same. His expression was hard, even malevolent, and his eyes burned nuclear.

“I will ask you again,” he said, his voice low and rough, “do you want this?”

“You killed your wife,” she whispered.

“I did." Vader felt her tremble underneath him. Her lip shook, and he saw the sparkle of tears in her eyes. He expected terror from her, a panicked urge to run. But he didn’t feel her terror. He felt her indignant rage.

“You,” she began, fighting to keep her swelling anger at bay, “you offered her the galaxy. You offered her power, security, safety, she would never want for anything. You offered her the universe itself. And she _refused_ you?” Unable to hold it, Lylla burst into angry tears. “You gave her a child! Someone to carry your name, your greatness. And she threw it away! Did she know? Did she know how PRECIOUS that is?” She gripped his shoulders and sank her forehead into his neck. “I would have crawled through that lava for you if you commanded me. And I would have given you sons.” She sobbed. “So many sons...”

Vader, taken aback by her reaction, opened his receptors and felt an emptiness crater inside of her. “They sterilized you,” he surmised.

Lylla’s head fell back onto the bed, and she looked away from him. “Right after my first bleed.” She chuckled bitterly through her tears. “That’s the difference between harem slaves and port whores. Lords of the manor don’t want to spend their wealth feeding the mouths of a dozen bastards. Pimps don’t care, they wouldn’t feed them anyway.” 

“Like your father.”

She grimaced at his mention before she snapped her eyes back to him. “Who was that man?”

“His name was Obi Wan Kenobi. My Jedi Master.” He raised his cybernetic hand. “The one who did this to me.”

Lylla’s rage flared around her like a star’s corona. She curled her fists on his shoulders. “Did you kill him?” she asked with hope in her voice and murder in her eyes.

“Yes,” Vader answered. _An hour after you left the Death Star._

“So,” she growled, “she did bring him to kill you. She did betray you.” Lylla closed her eyes, calmed her anger. When she opened them again, she reached up and took his face into her hands. Her eyes burned like melted platinum. “Yes. I want this. I want this even more. Danger has never scared me-- I would face the dimensional hells themselves for you.” She caressed his head. “I will follow you to the end of time itself. I swear this to you, my precious Lord.”

Vader said nothing, and she couldn’t quite read his eyes. He leaned in and kissed her hungrily until he hardened inside her again. He wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her up to meet his ardent thrusts. And while still passionate, his roughness had subsided. He pulled Lylla even closer, gripped her thigh and wrapped it around him, like he was trying to meld her into his own scarred flesh. Like he was trying to fill his own emptiness with her. Like he needed her.

And when she came, she wailed in perfect harmony with the hymns of the dark angels in her ears. He soon followed her, roaring against her neck and pulsing his seed into her. As they lay entwined and panting. Lylla touched his cheek. “My Lord,” she whispered, “what happened to your child?”

Vader lifted his head and looked her directly in the eye. “He died with her.”

* * *

The gown slid down her arms and cascaded over her slender body, dropping to sway around her ankles. She ran her hand down the front and over the sleeves, feeling the texture of Arisand silk for the first time in her life. It felt exactly like she had read it would-- like a cool whisper. The dress was simple yet elegant, fitting her like a serpent’s skin. A small laugh escaped her lips-- even it its simplicity, it probably cost more than she did all those years ago.

She looked at her Dark Lord, armored once again and seated in a large chair before her, and grinned. “I know you are a mage, my Lord, but I can’t help but be impressed by your miraculous ability to make beautiful clothes appear out of nowhere.”

“I had your modiste send several items here,” Vader stated. “I will destroy much of your wardrobe. It is only reasonable to have replacements on hand."

Lylla exhaled a shuddering breath as she clenched her loins. With a throaty giggle, she spun around to look at the dress in the full length mirror. But her smile faded as she saw herself. “Vader,” she breathed, “my eyes have turned white.”

“Yes, I noticed.”

She turned back to him. Indeed, her black pupils popped from irises white as star cores. “You don’t sound concerned,” she noted with concern of her own.

“There are some beings,” he explained, “acolytes to the Dark Side, but with no Force ability of their own. I have several in my employ across the Empire.” He was quiet for a moment before he said, “You are the first to have touched the Dark Side of the Force through me. It does not surprise me that you are transformed by it.” _But I am intrigued that you lived through it._

Lylla’s breath caught in her throat. But then a smile grew across her face. She came and slinked onto of him, straddling his thighs and snaking her arms around his neck. “You have put a spell on me, my Lord.”

A chuckle came through his vocoder. “No spell, Lylla” he murmured, running his fingers down her throat. “The Force favors you.” His fingers continued down the sleeve of her dress. “You are quite pleasing in scarlet. You must wear it often, my girl.”

Her smile grew wider. “Then I shall.” She looked around the room they were in, so different from the rest of the fortress. Circular, with cathedral windows on all sides, and furnished with sumptuous chairs, a divan, a sprawling vanity, and an enormous wardrobe. “This is mine?” she asked with subtle disbelief.

“Your dressing room.”

“This is the only furniture I’ve seen here. Except for your bed.”

“It is not my bed. It is solely for our use. I do not sleep in a bed.”

Lylla’s brow knit as she caught his subtext. “You mean you don’t sleep.”

He squeezed her arms, a subtle warning for her to discontinue the subject. “It is time to be serious,” he chided. “You will spend fourteen hours a day with your protocol droid.” 

“Fourteen hours? A day?” Lylla retorted.

“When you are not required at the Bureau, of course. You have much to learn. You will cover such lessons as etiquette, Imperial history, political structure, Core World languages, the names and titles of Imperial aristocracy, and dancing.”

Her face fell. “Dancing?”

“Not the kind you have known. Courtly dances. It will be expected of you.”

She chuckled. “Forgive me my Lord, but I find it hard to imagine you dancing.”

“That is because I don’t.”

“But you just said-”

“I said _you_ would be expected to dance."

Lylla frowned, albeit playfully. “That’s not fair.”

“No. It isn’t,” Vader said.

She looked up to the ceiling. "I’m a terrible dancer,” Lylla huffed. “It sounds awful.”

"Perhaps," he replied, "but you will have to be versed in these things for the Coronation Day Ball. Expect an invitation by tomorrow. Besides,” he added, “it will keep you occupied while I am on Fellenet.”

She started a bit. “Fellenet? Why do you want to go to that shitho--” She stopped herself, pursed her lips, and chose proper words. “That terrible planet?”

“Unexpected business,” he said quietly.

“What business?” He stared at her, the wheeze of his respirator only helping to make his point. She simpered. “You mean the kind that is none of my business.”

“You learn quickly, Sa’thraxxx.”

Lylla stared at him for a moment before she slid off him back onto the floor, crossed her arms, and turned away to look in the mirror. “So you’re leaving again.”

Vader rose from his chair and came behind her, joining her in the mirror. He put his hands on her shoulders. “This is the way it is. Accept it. Now.” She drew a deep breath and looked at the floor. He continued. “I assure you, I have no intention of being shot out of the sky by a barely-legal freighter piloted by a petty criminal this time. My business there will be brief.”

Lylla looked back up into the mirror, met his gaze, and nodded. She crossed her arms over herself, and laid her hands over his on her shoulders. “I will make you proud, my Lord. I swear it.”

“I expect nothing less, Lylla," Vader rumbled.

* * *

There was no ground, no gravity at all as Lylla stepped through the enormous palace doors onto the speeder dock. She practically floated, unfettered by this physical realm. She stopped for a moment, and looked into the sky. There, she didn't see just black, but every unimaginable shade of it. Her mind still reeled with what Vader had shown her. She had promised him no pity. But her heart ached and a seed of hatred had been planted and was now growing like a toxic vine.

"You foolish, spoiled little bitch," she whispered to the ghost of Padme Amidala. But then a wicked smirk stretched her mouth wide. This stupid girl may have destroyed him. 

But she would rebuild him.

* * *

"Well, well, well…what have we here?"

The human girl in the enormous bed stirred at the melodious baritone across the room. Propping herself on her elbow, she smiled dreamily. "Something interesting?"

"One might just say that." He ran his long fingers through his topknot as he perused the image on his holoscope.

The girl slid nude out from the covers and slinked across the exotic animal furs thrown about out to the balcony. The air still hung with the scent of exotic incense mixed with the musk of sex and pheromones and glimmer-smoke, and she breathed it deeply, stretching her arms over her head. She lowered them to wrap around his muscled green-skinned torso, sliding her hands into his silk bottoms. "Xizor, come back to bed…"

Prince Xizor hastily grabbed the girl's hands before they reached their prize. "Watch your manners, love," he growled, "I'm busy." And pulled them out of his pants. As the girl pouted and stomped back to the bed, the Falleen prince turned his attention back to the holoscope. He slit his eyes at the vision of the scarlet-haired woman standing on the speeder-port of Lord Vader's palace. "And who is this lovely beast?" 

A low, monotone female voice crackled through the his ear. "Lord Xizor."

"Yes, Guri," he answered the comlink implanted in one of his teeth.

"I have her in my sights."

"Send your image." 

Another image of Lylla spread across the holoscope’s screen from android Guri's optical camera. This time, a close-up of her. Xizor’s reptilian eyes raked over the willowy woman. He laughed softly when he saw the heat that flushed her ivory bosom and cheeks, and the disheveled mess of her dark scarlet mane. "I can always recognize a fresh-fucked look," Xizor purred to himself. A snarl replaced the grin. "Who would have thought that cyborg sorcerer could function as a man?"

His attention diverted to the signal of the holopad in the center of his chamber. He stepped inside and to the pad, and immediately fell into a deep bow as the image materialized. "Your Majesty."

"Rise, my friend," Palpatine’s image croaked, gesturing lightly. "This is a cordial call. No need for protocol."

Xizor glanced up at the Emperor, a tad unsure, before rising to his feet. "To what do I owe this… benevolent honor, your Majesty?"

"I take it your network of spies are quite worked up tonight, Xizor," the Emperor said, sourly amused. "As is your holoscope."

The Supreme Vigo of Black Sun chuckled as he traced an arched eyebrow with a painted talon. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Majesty—"

"You've seen her, Xizor, don't lie to me. You spying on Lord Vader has become infamous gossip."

Xizor swallowed a bit. "It's harmless enough, Majesty."

"It doesn't concern me, Xizor. What concerns me is that woman."

"Who is she, sire?"

A crooked, sickly smile tipped the Emperor's lip. "Why, Vader's new mistress, of course."

“Just one mistress? How quaint.” Xizor's brow went up. "I fail to understand what this has to do with me."

"Xizor," Palpatine began, almost affectionately. "We are friends, are we not?"

"That goes without saying, sire."

"And friends do favors for each other."

Xizor smiled a frosty grin. "Such as?"

Palpatine paused for a moment. “You have received my invitation to the Coronation Day celebration?"

"Received and replied, your Eminence. It is an honor to be invited—"

"Yes, yes, yes," the Emperor snapped hastily before resuming. "While you are there, I would require you to pay… _special attention_ to Vader's mistress."

"How special?" Xizor asked quickly

Again, that noxious smile. "I leave that to your discretion, Prince Xizor."

A slow, murky grin curled Xizor's face, and he nodded his head in a bow. "I live only to serve the Empire, your Majesty."

* * *

The artificial dawn had begun to rise over the Imperial throneworld when Lylla stepped through her apartment doors. Her servant girl, who had been curled in front of the door awaiting her mistress' return, jumped to her knees and immediately bowed to the floor.

Lylla regarded her for a moment before uttering. "Rise, girl. I'll have no more of that."

The girl sheepishly looked at her mistress, and stifled a gasp at her altered appearance. She hastily rose to her feet, and took the wrap Lylla handed her. Lylla stepped into the living room, and looked dreamily out the huge glassine balcony that overlooked the stunning city-planet. "What is your name?"

This time the girl did gasp, almost dropping the wrap. This was the first time the Inquisitor had ever asked her name. "Pa…Palissa, my lady."

"It's pretty." Lylla turned to the golden-curled girl. And smiled. “You’re very pretty too.” Her voice was low and regal. "I have not treated you well, Palissa. That changes, today.” _I have been shown I am better than that._ “I will reward you with quarters of your own. And a pay raise."

"Thank…thank you, my Lady," the girl rasped.

"Do you know how to use the holonet?”

She nodded. "Yes, madam."

Lylla nodded. "For the next two weeks, I shall be very busy. I will need your assistance in preparation for Coronation Day. I have been invited to the Imperial Palace." She allowed the girl a gasp before continuing. "I need you to contact the finest designers on the Throneworld." She smiled. "I will need a dress…fit for an Empress."

* * *

The Fellenet rains sizzled on Ecchu Shen-Jon’s green lightsaber, while the drops barely touched the red blaze of Vader’s. The troops of the 501st, keeping Shen-Jon’s companions at bay in the mud with their blasters, sneaked looks at the Dark Lord as he dominated the renegade Jedi in their duel. TK7866, the only trooper to be called by his name Kreel, was in awe of Lord Vader’s speed and style. He made that miserable Jedi look like a clumsy child.

Shen-Jon parried Vader’s thrust, but didn’t see the rotted tree stump Vader pulled out of the muck and hurled with the Force. It hit the Jedi in the back, knocking him into the mud with a wet slurp. Vader encroached on him. “Too busy performing your circus tricks to train properly, Shen-Jon? I have killed padawans with more skill than you. You are pathetic, Jedi.”

Shen-Jon shook sense back into his head, and laughed. “I’m pathetic? At least I’m not a crazy old man’s attack dog, Vader. So, do you get a biscuit for killing me? A nice pat on the helmet?”

“Neither, Shen-Jon. I get your head.” Vader thrust his arm forward. Shen-Jon’s lightsaber flew out his hand. The Jedi reached his other hand in front of him. The saber froze in mid-air, caught in the struggle of the dueling Force powers of the Jedi and the Sith. 

Shen-Jon pulled his arm inward, and the saber slowly inched toward him. Vader looked to his side at the group of Shen-Jon’s six followers, humans and aliens of varying ages but all just barely adults. He shifted his hand toward one boy, no more than sixteen. The boy careened through the air, his throat landing right in Vader’s grip.

“NO!” Shen-Jon cried. 

Vader turned to the Shen-Jon, the boy choking in the vice of his hand, the pounding rain dripping off his mask and helm. “Let it go, Jedi. And I’ll spare him.”

The Jedi twisted his face in anguish, and released his Force-hold the saber. Vader dropped the boy, caught Shen-Jon’s saber, ignited it, raised it like a spear, and hurled it right into the Jedi’s chest. Shen-Jon convulsed, grabbed his own saber’s hilt over his heart, and fell forward into the mud. Vader lurched at him through the ankle-deep mud and, grabbing his hair, he forced the Jedi’s head up and sliced his saber through his neck. 

The group of young people cried and screamed as they watched their leader and adoptive father fall, clutching each other even as they were held on their knees at blaster-point. Vader scanned the group for Force-ability. Some had more than others, but they were all Force-sensitive to some degree. 

He walked over and tossed Shen-Jon’s head in front of them.“You have a choice,” he addressed them. “You may swear fealty to the Emperor, offer your abilities to his service and _live_ … or, you may die here in the mud on your knees.” 

The group all looked at each other, seeking the others’ answers with their eyes. And it seemed they were all in agreement. A young human girl looked right at the Sith Lord. “I think I speak for all of us when I say...,” she grinned maliciously, “ _Fuck you_ , Darth Vader.”

“Language." He turned to Sergeant Kreel. “Proceed.” The Sergeant and the rest of the platoon stepped forward and opened fire. The screams were short-lived, and rivulets of the band’s blood mixed with the muddy puddles they fell in with soft _splats_.

Vader switched his saber off and hooked it back onto his belt. “Sergeant Krell.”

Kreel stepped forward. “Yes, Lord Vader.”

“Have a cell readied aboard the shuttle with an interrogation droid.”

Kreel looked at the sprawl of the dead, then back at Vader. "My Lord?”

“It is not for them,” he said. “I am going to Holirtown. I am bringing a prisoner back.”

“Yes, my Lord. Will you require backup?”

“Unlikely.”

Kreel believed him. He didn’t really need them there as it was. “The bodies, Lord Vader. Burn them?”

“If the flamethrowers will function in this rain. Otherwise do not waste the charges. Retrieve the Jedi's head and put it in freeze. A gift for the Emperor.” Vader started walking toward what was left of the washed-out road, the rain running off his water-repellent cloak as night dimmed over the wet sloppy mess that was the fishing world of Fellenet.

Holirtown was just three kilometers up the road, a distance Vader could traverse easily. Even if it was Fellenet’s largest economic center, Holirtown made Mos Eisley look like a luxury resort. There was only one main road through the town, with lanes and alleys haphazardly laid out between hundreds of buildings of scrap metal many years rusted, including the city’s seat of government (if it could be seriously called that). The town surrounded the main fishing bay, where fishers from all around the planet brought their catches to sell to the fish brokers, who shipped them off-planet to the galaxy’s markets. It was the only municipality built on solid land, unlike the artificial rig-islands erected all over the globe. The only thing uglier than the town was the smell of the town as fish blood and guts ran through the streets from the gutting plant. Vader mused that had Lylla stayed here, her beauty would have been washed away by drink and disease years ago.

The few public halogens that lined the street barely illuminated the Dark Lord’s form as he entered the town. The rain still poured heavy, and the temperature hovered just scant degrees above freezing. One would think the town was uninhabited had it not been for the loud music and even louder arguing, fighting, and drunken revels emanating from the scrap-metal domiciles. He was about to pass a gap between buildings when he stopped and looked. There was a platform there in the gap, set away from the road. He recognized the platform. It was the one where Lylla stood when she was sold as a child. Still there. Still in use.

He saw a lone man in the street to his left, huddled under a hole-pitted awning. He approached him. The man momentarily forgot the frigid rain he was trying to escape as he watched the Lord of the Sith come to loom over him.

“The pimp,” Vader said to the crouched man. Thunder crashed above them. The man flinched, but Vader held still. “Where is he?”

The man fought to find his voice. “You talking about G--”

“Do not say his name in my presence,” Vader’s vocoder reverberated from the depth of his chest. “Where?”

The man pointed. “The cantina. At the end of the road. Where the hell else would he be?” Vader started in that direction. The man shouted after him, “Hey, if you’re looking for a girl, you can do better than the bottom-feeders he turns out--” Vader never turned around when the man shot up in the air and was thrown across the street into a pile of scrap and fish guts.

He came upon the cantina. The smoke of glimmer-spice and death sticks seeped from the windows into the street. Raucous music paired with raucous voices blared through the door. He raised his hand. The door flew open. Vader stepped inside.

The place was narrow and long and dark, packed with multiple species, all intoxicated in some form and to varying degrees. But a conspicuous wave of silence passed over the crowd when they saw the black mountain of cape, helmet, mask, and malevolence standing in the entrance. The band stopped playing. Glasses stopped clinking. Vader’s respirator filled the silence like a noxious audible fog.

He passed his glare to the bartender. “The pimp.”

The bartender, a half-breed human-Nikto male, backed away from the bar and thumbed in the direction of the back. “He, he’s back there. In his corner. His spot.”

The Dark Lord looked back at the crowd. “Leave.”

The place cleared out in a matter of seconds. A mad dash erupted toward any door available, and even a couple of windows. The bartender leapt over the bar and out the door, not even bothering to take the night’s till with him. Glasses crashed to the ground, tables were tipped over, and soon Vader stood alone amongst the wreckage.

He walked slowly and deliberately to the back of the cantina. There were some booths and tables tucked away in the corners. He approached the table that had a man passed out over it. He stepped to the table’s edge. “Out." A young girl’s head slowly came up from under the table where she had been orally servicing the inebriated man until it unexpectedly became her hiding spot. She wiped her mouth, crawled up onto the booth and over the man, and took off running. 

Vader turned his attention back to the drunk. “Wake up.”

The man, his red hair streaked with white and thinning badly, snorted awake, but didn’t lift his head. “What?” he grunted into the table. He was so drunk, he didn’t even hear Vader’s breathing.

“You have a daughter,” Vader rumbled. “Named Lylla.”

The man’s slumped body bounced a bit on the table as a phlegmy laugh gurgled through his nose and throat. “Well, there’s a blaster from the paster,” he slurred, laughing even more at his stupid joke. He reached out his hand to grab the bottle in front of him, a bottle Vader slid to the other side of the table with the Force. The man still reached around for it and grew agitated. “Yeah, I guess you could call her that. I call her the little cunt that killed my highest-paid girl pushing her outta her. The only thing I got good outta her was seven thousand credits.” He shrugged, still face down. “Eh, more than I ever got for the boys. The Kessel mines don’t pay that kind of money.” He almost reached the bottle. Vader moved it again. The man growled, then laughed again into the table. He raised his hand and wagged a finger. “Virgins, that’s where the real money is. You don’t waste fresh tail on one pop-off for a couple hundred creds. Nah, you sell ‘em to harems. You don’t waste that shit.” He finally lifted his head off the table. “What, she’s still alive? What’s she to you--” He stopped when he was finally able to focus his inebriated eyes on Darth Vader, the Might of the Empire, standing on the other side of the table.

Vader curled a fist at his side when he saw the resemblance. His face was angular and long like hers, but was almost as scarred as Vader’s from years of cutting the narcotic known as Black Razor into it. His hair may have been the same color once, but was now shedding pigment and thickness. He may have been tall like Lylla, but years of drink, drugs, and disease left him little more than a skeleton drowning in his clothes.

The degenerate sat up, albeit clumsily, and inched up the back on the back of the booth. “Hey now, listen-- whatever she did, I got shit to do with that, alright? I ain’t seen the bitch in twenty years!”

“No. Not since you sold her,” Vader flatly replied. The table launched off the ground and smashed into the adjacent wall. The pimp screeched and fell to the ground, scrambling to his feet to run. Vader gripped his neck in a Force-hold and hurled him across the cantina over the bar. He smashed into the mirrors on the bar’s wall and fell behind it.

The man howled from behind the bar, “Hey, hey, look-- she got three squares a day, clothes on her back, and a roof over her head. Hell, she even got off this shithole of a planet! More than I ever did! She was a lot better off with them than with me, alright? I DID HER A FUCKING FAVOR!” He sloppily burst up from behind the bar, where he had found the bartender’s blaster that he now aimed at Vader. 

He peeled off a few shots. The Dark Lord caught the blaster bolts in his palm as he bore down on him, redirecting the last one to shoot through the pimp’s shoulder. He screamed as the blaster flew out of his hand into Vader’s and watched him break it in half. He fell onto his back, and looked up to see Vader jump over the bar and stalk toward and over him. 

Still clutching his shoulder, the miscreant crawled away from him, shrieking, “Look, whatever she did, I’ll pay for it, ok? I got-- I got creds, right here!” He stopped crawling just long enough to pull a purse out of his jacket. “Look, see? There’s more, I can get more!” Vader didn’t stop. The man started wailing. “Gods, don’t, don’t kill me! I can pay! I swear it! I’LL PAY!!”

He bolted into the air, as if hanging from a noose, and flew to the far wall and stuck there like he was nailed to it. Vader came back over the bar. He pulled his lightsaber off his belt. “Yes, you will pay," rumbled the Dark Lord of the Sith as he came at him with measured menace. "And this is my price.” He pressed his mask into Lylla's father's shredded, gasping, sobbing face and forced him to breathe its exhaust. “You will suffer relentless agony one full day for every year she suffered as a slave. And you will not die until I am paid in full.” He ignited the saber. “Consider it a bargain.”

Outside, the wet and freezing cantina crowd huddled into each other, whispering and wondering how they were going to get their cloaks and purses and blasters and whatnot when blood-curdling screams came out of the tavern, barely muffled by the thin alumitin door. Many just ran, others too stupefied to move. The half-human half-Nikto bartender ran his hands through his soaked hair, turned to the crowd and said, “Closed until further notice.”

 

Next in the Dark Angel Series: Dangerous Games

**Author's Note:**

> Vaal was the planet Vader crash landed on after the Battle of Yavin in the Dark Horse comic.
> 
> Ecchu Shen-Jon was a character from the Star Wars video game in 1992.
> 
> Fellenet is my own creation. I've never seen a fishery planet in the GFFA. I wanted a planet that was the exact opposite of Tatooine-- wet, dark, cold, and just as miserable. 
> 
> "Arisand" is also a creation of mine. Arisand is a luxury brand, like Louis Vitton or Hermes. There is Arisand silk, Arisand furs, even Arisand flowers.
> 
> And if you've stuck around this long, the next installment will be downright fluffy compared to this.


End file.
